DÏ MIXES THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE

by Emma Riva

Old money and the arts used to go hand in hand. Today’s robber barons seem more interested in investing in environmentally disastrous technology than in building libraries or funding museums. Even for those who do buy art as a class signifier, investing in living artists seems rarer and rarer. This past weekend, though, Prophecies, a one-night solo show by artist and mental health practitioner Dominic Lazzini, who goes by Dï, brought a sense of whimsy to the otherwise uptight energy of the Harvard-Yale-Princeton Club downtown.  (You do not actually have to have attended any of those institutions to be a member there, by the way, and their signature Old Fashioned is quite good).

Dï clearly has fun with his work. That doesn’t mean the ideas explored in it are any less serious—grief and existential dread are through-lines in his paintings. But there’s a sense of play in his paintings. This series was also some of the most consistent I’ve seen from him. His practice has developed enough that viewers can see certain signatures of his style. His figures frequently have long, spindly fingers. Sports logos frequently show up, which might look tacky in anyone else’s vision, but work with his concept of mixing high and low culture.

The imagery of the occult is another throughline in the paintings, from the Ace of Cups in scopa to the Five of Cups in tarot, plus signs and signifiers from astrology and Abrahamic religions. The work shows an artist with an interest in uncovering what’s beneath the different facets of image-making. Who’s to say the White Sox logo can’t be charged with the same kind of energy as a tarot card?

But even for an artist who plays with many kinds of images, there are some that are more challenging than others. Dï had qualms about including Acéphale because of the presence of the male nude form. But the veer into figuration shows some diversity in the work. The headless human form holds a skull over his pelvis, surrounded by worse like HORSES, PORTUGAL BLUE, and THE SEA.

There’s something in Dï’s work about resolving duality, between the body and the mind, between people and nature, or between different sides of one person’s self. 100,000 Failures depicts inner turmoil through two black and white figures in opposition. That particular piece draws from his training as a mental health counselor, where he studied ways of dissolving black and white thinking. “You have to force yourself not to sink into a black or white, life or death situation,” he explains.  

Dolphin with Harpoon is a piece that Di said was an “emotional exorcism” that “filled him with an overwhelming sense of peace” when he finished it. What’s interesting is that none of the paintings are peaceful. The brushstrokes are rough and gestural and the compositions are full-to-the-brim. The images don’t feel cluttered, though. There’s a fluidity to the chaos.

But there’s an element of melancholy to imagery of harpooned dolphins and faceless bodies. The dialogue in Dï’s work is that there’s freedom and whimsy in it, but also a profound sadness. Where some art shows the existential void as a nothingness, Dï’s work shows the strain of having to go on with your life, surrounded by the symbols of what you’ve lost. How you’re grieving, everything around you blurs—sports logos, advertisements, labels are all just white noise. The fact that Dï intermingles images of the occult reminds viewers that in many ways, the overload of symbols around us distract us from the truth of our own mortality.

It’s easy to see neo-expressionist, collage-based work as derivative of Basquiat or Rauschenberg. The genre is on the shoulders of giants, and it can be a challenge for an artist working in that style to get out of their shadow. But Dï makes it his own. Prophecies is his most consistent body of work, and it’s exciting to see how in the show he’s found more of his own voice.

Emma Riva is the founder of Petrichor.

This month’s articles are generously supported by Lewis Hine Pictures America at the Frick. Discover photography’s radical capacity through May 17. Tickets now on sale.