Flatline Gallery’s newest exhibit Sueños is a scene of fantastical images depicting the dreams and nightmares of 16 artists.
The exhibition was put together by longtime artist and first-time curator Daniel Toledo, who proposed the idea to depict a dream that has both haunted him and brought him solace over the past two decades.
In 2001, Toledo’s family was going through “rough times” in the wake of his parents’ recent divorce. He remembers, in typical angsty teenage fashion, pushing his dad away when he tried to hug him.
One weekend, his mother got a phone call. Something had happened at his dad’s work.
When he, his mother and his sisters arrived at the scene, police told Toledo that his father had died in a work accident.
Since the police told him first, it was his job to inform his family.
“I didn’t cry. I just didn’t know how to feel,” Toledo said. “I just felt very hollow inside. I couldn’t believe that this happened and I just felt very lost. I didn’t know what to do or what to say. People felt sorry and I just wanted to be alone.”
He spent the following summer in Washington to stay with his cousins “to be away from everything.”
Then one night, he had a dream.
“I was in a really dark place and this ghostly person showed up,” Toledo said. “I just knew it was my dad. It came as a white glowing ghost. He came up and he just hugged me. I just woke up crying.”
He said he’s never forgotten, and could never forget, that dream.
“That was the last time I saw my dad,” he said, remembering the time he dodged his dad’s hug. “I felt like when I had that dream, he’s like ‘It’s okay. It’s fine, don’t feel sad or angry. I forgive you. It’s okay.’”
The dream was singed into his mind for two decades. During that time he painted murals, participated in group shows and honed his craft of hyperrealism. But he never painted the dream, waiting for when he was a “better” artist.
The Sueños exhibit was his excuse to finally bring the scene to reality.
The dream is depicted in three 1-foot by 1-foot paintings. In one, a young boy sits curled up in a ball, surrounded by darkness. In the next, the white silhouette of a pair of legs appears, and the boy turns upwards at an unseen face. In the third, the ghostly-white silhouette lowers itself on a knee to embrace the child.
At the show’s opening, he shared his story with attendees and other artists.
“I don’t really like to share a lot, but doing those paintings gave me the courage to do that,” Toledo said.
Flatline Gallery Director Elizabeth Munzón said she was “honored” to host the show, especially given Toledo’s inspiration for the theme. She noted that Toledo did an “amazing job” given it was his first time curating.
“I find dreams and nightmares to be fascinating,” Munzón said. “They can be weird, funny and scary. We all have them and have our own idea what they might mean, so having artists visually interpret their own was really exciting.”
Roshi Vincent, former roommate of Toledo and participating artist in the show, submitted his take on dreams and nightmares: a pale figure surrounded by abstract shapes titled “When the Labyrinth Cracked.”
“The idea is that your dream space is largely your subconscious space,” he said. “And that when things show up to you in very vivid, stark, undeniable ways in your dreams, it’s kind of something bubbling up.”
Each artist had their own interpretation of the broad theme. Rachel Silva painted a woman holding roses, blood dripping from her mouth with deep green hues contrasting with bright magenta. Joey Stupor created a multi-media piece depicting rounded wooden shapes layered atop one another. Alison Bamcat painted the neon figure of a giraffe with serpents bursting from its severed head.
Vincent said that Toledo’s works stood out from others in the exhibit.
“A lot of people had artwork that was pulled from the dream world into waking life,” he said. “But his was much more his waking life entering the dream world.”
Vincent, who still sends Toledo voice memos about his dreams, encourages attendees to look beyond the artworks themselves and reflect on the individual experiences of the artists in their dream worlds.
“These [artworks] are the reflections of the pools that collect from how [the artists] live their lives,” Vincent said. “And hopefully that gives people a little to ponder on, more than just fantastic pictures that come from nowhere, but rather these are the collecting dewdrops of everybody’s lives, pouring into these little vessels of canvas and paint.”
Sueños is on display at Flatline Gallery, 6023 Atlantic Ave., from March 26 to April 17. The gallery is open Friday through Sunday, noon to 6 p.m. More information about the exhibit can be found at www.flatlinegallery.com or on the gallery’s Instagram page @flatlinegallery.
