Dorado806 presented a wonderful array of artworks ranging from sculpture to mixed media in well-proportioned scales. We have an eclectic display of what can constitute a favorable plurality of elemental artworks which can fit in very neat and narrow spaces, to imbue it with an organic effort – a return to Earthly simplicity.

Not to say this is the main thesis of all the artists in their extensions of truth. But the simplicity in the select works for review bring us nearer to the source, rather than being inundated with frantic extensions of novelty, e.g. abstract expressionism. The forms here, then, avoid unnecessary complexities and confusing haze.

Mike Savage’s works, for instance, give us this healthy “crudeness” to the base textures and forms. We are dealing with a fine artist that is merited a bit of coarseness to the paint, to the canvas, to even the figure and its welcoming. And it is indeed a warm hello, with an embrace of outstretched canvas arm which elicits an exciting embrace of those primary colors with their proudly unfinished brushstrokes of confidently poised paints. It is this acceptance of a white base to then bring out an abstraction of positivity – indeed perhaps a salubrious idea – of entering into the world. Or letting it in? Irrespective of the judgment, it is in the tastefulness in balancing the colors which brings a new sense of primal warmth to contemporary fine arts.

“Mojave Hare”, 2022
Mixed Media
20″ L x 10″ W in.
Courtesy Julia Franco-Briest and 806Dorado. Copyright Julia Franco-Briest.

Meanwhile, Julia Franco-Briest presents a mirthful pseudo-taxidermist idea of a vegetable rabbit head. I find it adorable. Its scale would work well with a gardener’s ambitions at tilling; the joy of reaping what one sows; that honest toil inaugurated by self-independence, and the reliance one the sweat of one’s brow to bring out the best idea of being a steward of the Earth. And it is in this bulbed delight that we have an invitation towards a perfect innocence, which can find itself motivating nurseries and kindergartens – to introduce the reimagination of natural life.

“HOOK”, 2023
Mixed Media
14x32x7 in.
Courtesy David DeRoma and 806Dorado. Copyright David DeRoma.

Finally, David DeRoma’s woodworks are a delight in craftsmanship. Hook is a maritime joy, of the appropriate amalgam of fine wood-carved fish-head with an idea of an anchor point – not as a static placement; though the artwork does a wonderful job as that; but of a necessary extension to go fish. It is in this necessary demand, to constantly toil to live another day to seize, that a return to bare necessities warrants. And Hook does just that in celebrating man’s God-give ability to fish. To learn, to therefore remember, where nourishment will be, such that his mind may be free to create beauty.

For more information, please contact the gallery:

806Dorado

806 Broadway Ave.

Santa Monica, CA 90401

info@dorado806.com