Elizabeth Ferrer

Alberto Montaño's paintings and sculptures resist simple categorization. Committing himself neither solely to abstract nor to figurative modes, his ambiguous forms challenge the viewer to determine whether they are meant to function as signifiers or as formal devices. Additionally, despite his obvious interest in the painted surface, he also incorporates three-dimensional objects into his canvases, thereby creating hybrids between painting and sculpture. Finally, while some of Montaño's themes, as well as his often exuberant use of color, reveal an indebtedness to his cultural heritage, he does not easily fit into the group of other artists of his generation who have become known for the centrality of specifically Mexican themes in their work.

Structural devices and formal relations in Montaño's works strongly contribute to his ability to impart visceral emotional qualities. One conspicuous characteristic of his paintings is their physicality. He construct's most as diptychs with one panel atop another; different kinds of materials ranging from women's spiked heel shoes to molded lead sheets or pieces of scavenged wood are usually affixed to the upper panel. The three-dimensional objects he attaches to his surfaces often project into the viewer's space, giving these large works an assertive presence. Since such three-dimensional forms are usually absent from the lower section of these works, a marked contrast is created between the top and bottom panels: In some works the top portion, by virtue of its heaviness, appears capable of crushing the lower one but in others, the delicate, sometimes playful imagery of the lower panel seems to blissfully ignore the oppressive quality of the forms above.

Montaño also produces physically dynamic relations between his painted or sculpted forms and picture fields. In Longing for an Oracle I (1990), the upper panel is covered with thin lead sheets which tightly sheathe some three-dimensional objects affixed to the picture support underneath. The forms appear to be pushing outward, as if attempting to burst through the lead skin. In contrast, the single form contained on the lower panel gently recedes into space. In other works where Montaño bas attached rows of spiked-heel shoes to his canvases, the spikes, thrusting out into space, can be read as feminine or aggressively sexual forms. As a formal device however, the row upon row of black high heels also acts to humorously animate the picture's surface with a staccato rhythm.

Although Montaño depicts a fairly limited range of representational and abstract forms in his paintings and sculptures, he uses them to express a range of emotional ideas. Few of these forms possess singular meaning. Instead, most can be interpreted in numerous ways depending upon their relation with other elements in individual works or simply, the imagination of the spectator. This variability is due in part to the manner in which these forms have developed as a vocabulary for Montaño. Reluctant to refer to them as symbols — or any other term that would connote a pre-determined meaning — he usually conceives forms as a result of everyday experiences or because they remind him of someone or something important in his life. The V-shape form prominent in Longing for an Oracle I and featured in other paintings, for example, is based on the shape of a horse's head, a form invented as an allusion to an aspect of the artist's personal life. In painting this shape countless times, its original meaning has diminished while new associations have come into play. In other paintings, a crescent-shape form can resemble a month, eye or female genitalia, while a form initially conceived as a leaf might now be read as a leg or a horn.

The same ambiguity of meaning is maintained in Montaño's bronze sculptures, constructed either as relief works or free-standing objects. Among his sculptures are objects that resemble swords, emblems or ritualistic devices, and eccentric organic forms, possibly huge phalluses or the limbs of monstrous creatures. These works can be uncomfortable to view precisely because of the difficulty in deciphering the artist's intent. At one moment a sculpture may seem fiercely rigid while at another, it can appear to represent a pulsating living form or biological growth out of control. With images that simultaneously suggest the animate, and the inanimate, and the precarious border between life and death, Montaño's recent sculptures have the power to arouse the spectator's most instinctual fears.

The primitive references present in many of Montano's paintings and sculptures also point to his use of art as a vehicle in a search for things of meaning. Montaño has been attracted to primitive art forms because of their spontaneous sense of expression and particularly because the objects that we, as members of western culture, view as works of art were conceived by their makers as primarily functional objects with sacred or invoking purposes. His largest sculpture to date, Noa-Noa (1989), is directly inspired by the grandly proportioned canoes of Oceanic peoples. Montaño, however, contradicts the function of his vessel by filling it with white stones. Employing a canoe's shape only as a point of departure this form can be envisioned as a gigantic pod holding hundreds of eggs, each with the potential to burst forth and offer something new and of value to the world.

Alberto Montaño's use of disparate media and sculptural elements in his work, as well as the range of emotive qualities conveyed, since his continuing, multifaceted explorations to confront fundamental human and spiritual issues. Even if unable to definitively solve the questions he poses, the expressive visual force of his works manifest the power of art not only to pose those questions with eloquence, but also to mirror life's pleasures, contradictions and conundrums.