Critical Writing & Press

“Here is the fruit within reach of our gaze. So real, lustrous, tempting that, for a fraction of a second, the illusion is complete and the viewer reaches out a hand. The reverie dissolves, but the fascinated eyes are carried along by the folds, drunk on stripes and colors, of the sheet. From the magic of an exquisite, precious minuteness that offers the object to our visual gluttony, we pass to the magic of signs, of signals… They possess a singular sensibility, exhale tenderness and provoke a gaze charged with affection… and, when there are two, they suggest the approaches of love. They have a metaphorical richness, in keeping with the visual poetry of their interpretation.”

“The painting of Enriquillo Rodríguez Amiama, one of the most outstanding Dominican painters of the so-called Generation of the 80s, currently oscillates between intimism and a deepening and complexification of spatial illusionisms, which also implies an amplification of the repertoire of thematic resources… With these and other images the artist reminds us of what we already knew, but we confirm again: the history of Dominican painting over the last two decades would be incomplete without mention of an artist who summarizes and fuses several traditions of our visual arts, in a rigorously personal, integrated body of work, in which diverse levels of language coexist in an ordered manner, from the pictogram to the abstract mark or the figurative icon.”

“His contribution to contemporary painting is his freshness of line, his mastery of drawing, the subtle arrangement of color, resulting in a work that becomes attractive and evocative, sensitive and evident. An evidence that bets on figuration, within syncretic parameters, of postmodern contribution, seeking complexity from simplicity to show the dynamics of love, the instants of desire, the melancholic or euphoric moments, without resorting to direct description.”

“A pioneer of postmodern art, as well as the creator of his own style, a new pop art. Since the early 1980s, Enriquillo decided to go against the current and express himself in a highly personal way, while taking as references artists of that moment… being one of the first artists to present at a National Biennial (1984) a work that combined hyperrealism with gestural abstraction and symbolism.”

“For me, as a curator and art critic, it was surprising to come across a number of international publications that highlight Amiama, comparing him with several of the most important painters in the History of Art. In the book «Still Life In Oils», English professor Theodora Philcox places Enriquillo first among the greatest exponents of the still life, for his paintings of fruits, vegetables and flowers, in a rabidly postmodern style, combining realism and abstraction in an original and personal way. Amiama is compared with Cézanne, Juan Gris and Chardin, for his mastery of structure and almost mathematical, perfect, rational composition.”

“We also have here a sample of the creative genius of Enriquillo Rodríguez Amiama in his tireless journey from the classical to the contemporary, with extraordinary fluidity. Enriquillo Rodríguez Amiama is representative of the Dominican with strong national roots, conscious of the historical and artistic heritage of his nation, but a manager of universal discourses and exchanges. Rodríguez Amiama confronts us with pictorial languages fed by processes of transmutation and dynamics.”