The most immediate way to introduce the art of David Aronson is
to recall the terrifying booklet of the album 'Bringer of Blood'
by Six Feet Under, or the politically incorrect illustrations
that stand out on the CD 'State of the Union' by Zero Zero. It
involves, in every case, the profane side of an artist who is
completely opposite to frivolous, a genius of imaginative art
who loves to represent the horrors of the world through a distorted
lens capable of immersing his subjects in an atmosphere dreamlike
and alien. Aronson's art is a production which, as the artist
himself admits, leaves us with two central sentiments: emotion
and sincerity. The frightening elements and disturbing situations
are those which frightened and irritated the artist when he was
a child. Such contents are then mediated through symbolic images
because "the symbols are potent and involving and people
can see many more aspects of their being in a symbol than in a
message of explicit significance." In speaking of the emotional
nature of his art, Aronson can be considered a psychonaut of himself.
The worlds of dark colors and haunting shadows of death, studded
with arcane, mystical symbols and populated by deformed creatures,
represent the violent and agnostic exorcism of a past lived together
with a cabalistic father and a mother who was a professional mourner
(or a person who is paid to cry at funerals... in the USA this
also exists) *It looks like the author of this article took me
seriously about my father being a cabalist and my mother a professional
mourner--it was a joke--DA* It is art as therapy and therefore
reaction, a behavior that brings to light the second aspect of
Aronson's art, sincerity. The artist is the 'naked king' that
exhibits without shame and censure his own subconscious, as well
as all the stress (or the pain) that serves to bring it to the
surface. It deals with a parallel and complementary process used
by the artist, who also functions as a hypnotherapist, holistic
healer, and astrologer. Questioned about the motivation that
propels him to continue his artistic career, Aronson, in fact,
responds "the desire to be honest and to expand the vision
of the public. The desire that something inside of them heals
by way of this honesty."
The techniques utilized by Aronson to represent his contorted
universe are varied, ranging from watercolors to charcoal, from
pastels to India ink. The artist also delights in integrating
into the actual drawings images realized by the computer and photography
done by himself or found from the most disparate sources. The
final effect is that of an open window on a nightmare, where lucid,
photorealistic details vanish in monstrous forms, deformed, abstract.
Like his namesake and famous Russian colleague of origin, David
Aronson shares his individual nature, in particular the Jewishness
his roots, to arrive at universal themes. His 'Holocaust Art
Series' is one of the rawest and most shocking artistic interpretations
of the antisemitic Nazi massacres. The artist re-configures photographs
in a technological repertoire of photomontage and deformation
of image, giving life to a true and genuine visual hell, that,
alternating in manner, captures the pure emotion of the reality,
bringing out the full horror and insanity of the Holocaust. To
get an idea, it will suffice to observe the piece 'Hell', in which
an official of the SS, his face transfigured into that of a monster,
extracts a skeletal fetus from a miserably familiar mountain of
cadavers amassed in a death camp. Another notable work is his
'Alchemical Tarot', a series of twenty-two illustrations that
interpret the 'Major Arcana' of the gypsy tradition. The archetypal
roots of the tarot translate well to the symbolist nature of Aronson's
art, which however does not bend to the original meanings of the
cards, but re-elaborates the concepts across original and personal
elements. Here, therefore, the Major Arcana of Death, meaning
in extreme synthesis "a rebirth", is represented by
a skeleton with the face of a screaming baby having sexual relations
with the cadaver of a provocative woman in an advanced state of
decomposition. The work, as a whole, caught the interest of Adam
McLean, an international authority on occult symbolism and alchemy,
who decided to publish the tarot images as a deck (buy it at www.alchemywebsite.com).
With respect to the question of art and market, Aronson seems
to have clear ideas, defending the idea of easily usable economical
art. A high-resolution version of the 'Alchemical Tarot' can
in fact be bought online for the moderate figure of 15 dollars,
which is then to be glued onto cards to clip, creating, in a semi-handicraft
manner, the actual pack of cards. Also, a book of illustrations
is on sale, in PDF format, on Aronson's site (www.alchemicalwedding.com),
that is advisable to visit in order to know and fund this visionary
and charming artist.