Enoc Perez: Caribe Club

Caribbean nights

Enoc Pérez was born in Puerto Rico in 1967 and now lives in New York. The striking thing about his painting is the texture of the colour, the shimmering surfaces, the feel of which strongly encourages a tactile examination. The special secret of such realistic painting lies, of course, in the application of the paint. And here Enoc Pérez is a manic worker. He lays down areas of colour and shapes with great precision and then transfers them to the canvas layer by layer using a kind of frottage technique. Once he has completed a painting, there is no interest in this process, because the first viewing of the regular painting automatically marks the beginning of what we might call "romantic appropriation". On the one hand, Enoc Pérez prefers to paint women, but his painting style not only gives them an enigmatic allure, but also envelops them in a mystical aura, especially in awkward positions. This creates an irritation that directly targets desire. On the other hand, Enoc Pérez takes great pleasure in painting marvellous modern hotels and pools from the 1940s to the 1970s, which do not want to deny their paradisiacal location, surrounded by palm trees and lush vegetation. It is not only the dream of Caribbean luxury that can be located here, but desire jumps from the portraits of women to the supposed Garden of Eden like a somnambulist and places both subjects in one. Many would like to die here. And yet a contradiction creeps in. However, this is not because Enoc Pérez paints his motifs from photographic snapshots; rather, he seems to work a little with irregular cut-outs, shifting attraction and paradise only imperceptibly. However, as a trained romantic, he leaves the degree of perception of the shift to the viewer of his pictures.