Doraelia Ruiz “Never Yes No Me You”

Brainworks Gallery

through March 25th

by Genie Davis

Let’s start with a simple wow for Doraelia Ruiz’ “Never Yes No Me You” at Brainworks Gallery. The impressive rainbow of colors, the mix of found images with her own mark making and her use of digital art to combine these elements – this is a mind-bending visual whirl.

Using her merging and melding of a variety of media, Ruiz prints her combined images, stretches them on panels, and then paints over them. This is layering, but it is a delicate layering, her methodology forming an intimate palette to the longing she expresses for what can never be obtained and will never be fully real. The illusions she creates are dreamlike, and in coloration remind the viewer just a bit of the ethos of Peter Max if he did a Vulcan mind-meld with Van Gogh.