In his 1977 Christmas Lectures at the Royal Institution in London, Carl Sagan described the possibility of communication with extraterrestrials, saying, “One thing you have to do first is make sure you can understand the message. Dino Felipe, an iconic and prolific musician and artist from Miami who over the past twenty years has produced hundreds of works of art and recorded over a hundred albums, almost all made in his bedroom, described its production as the product of channeling: that is, it is the recipient of special transmissions from various corners of the dream world and from various celestial beings.
The title of Felipe’s exhibit here, “Wigs on Trees,” is taken from a photograph from the exhibit featuring the titular hairpieces hanging from assorted flora in Atlanta. This fascinating and long-awaited retrospective is a journey through the subconscious made totally and gloriously conscious. A standout acrylic painting, Boy in a garden2022, illustrates the pleasures of the natural landscape, amplified by the imagination: the subject, rendered as a blissfully elephantine figure, is surrounded by swirling butterflies, flourishes and vines. sound object2015, is a handmade instrument including, among other things, a wind chime, staples and a plaster spreader, which he used for the making of his 2015 album Symphonic Sufrida. Sketches from dream journals reveal the artist’s dream experiences as a sentient equation, a living hyperlink, and an ant-sized creature. (“We are all loved – so we must love each other,” he wrote in an interpretative note.)
Felipe leaves no surface untouched. Meta Language, 2022, a hypnotic acrylic and ink drawing of seals in green, red and black, archives a dream language; the symbols reappear along the doors and plinths of the gallery and function as a form of spiritual protection. In addition to the mostly two-dimensional works, Felipe and his mother painted the containers of several small plants, intended to be maintained for the duration of the show. The inner world of the artist is uncontrollable: it is alive, joyful and filled with compassion.
