2011 / Graphite, oil, and acrylic on canvas / 152.5 x 396 cm / Artist: Ronald Ventura / Private collection

Packed with fantasy creatures inspired from cartoons and sci-fi, human limbs, and text-based elements, Grayground is a large-scale painting that centers on equine figures racing toward opposite directions. Rendered in near monochrome grey with hints of color using oil and acrylic paints as well as graphite, Ventura’s complex layering technique reveals forms that seem to burst within the pictorial space. The divide in the composition is suggested by the tonal contrast between the left and the right portions of the canvas. Rather than presenting the horses separately as solid elements, the layering shows nuances in texture and value, which heighten the effect of movement and drama. The leftmost figure exposes the horse’s skeletal frame; the one next to it its musculature. Morphing into the center is a rigid form akin to sculpture, oriented toward the right side, vividly detailed yet imbued with a semitransparent quality. Forms placed further right consist of human limbs that coalesce with the white horse. A man’s body can be found adrift, an aftermath of being struck by the animal or as an indication of struggle against it. The horses on either side show a conical spectrum of the rainbow emanating from their eye sockets, the reverse pattern of colors suggesting opposing perceptions of reality. The turbulent composition is underscored by the text that reads “The Battle of the Century.”

The title Grayground evokes the motif of the painting on one hand, and intimates the significations of gray as a liminal space, on the other. Presenting a tableau of near obliteration, Grayground finds resonance in the dynamics and contradictions of contemporary life. The work testifies to the artist’s ability to teeter between one stylistic technique and another, creating dense imagery replete with symbolism and meaning. As a visual strategy, the artist’s technique of combining hyperrealist painting, cartoon drawings, and stencil often used in graffiti, results in an amalgamation of elements drawn from the academic tradition and popular genres. Thematically, Ventura’s works employ juxtapositions that question contending ideas such as those that have to do with the sacred and the profane, human agency and animalistic tendencies, man and machine, and the ideal and surreal.