Douglas Diaz on the Meaning of Joy and Happiness
In Sweden, Douglas Diaz sat down via video call to chat with me about his latest exhibition project, Joy is Happiness for No Reason, at ria x gallery. The Brooklyn, New York-born artist considers his inner and outer worlds through the practice of meditation. His paintings and mixed media work recurrently address feelings of darkness, fears, and pain. Building on the mood and themes of his earlier works, Diaz invites viewers to join him in understanding the meaning of joy and happiness in his most recent works.
Q: What made you choose to explore joy and happiness specifically given much of your previous work explores “embracing fears and darkness?”
A: I chose to embrace joy and happiness because the previous two years of my work were heavily marked by grief. This culminated in a show titled “Grief.” That show explored the personal and global understanding of grief. Both in the sense of how I felt through the loss of my beloved and the incredible global circumstances over the last few years that saw us collectively experience loss in ways that were difficult to comprehend.
As part of that show, I did 19 days of live paintings and many folks that came to the show expressed their own personal loss. This weighed very heavily on me, yet it was also cathartic.
After the show, I had a very strong urge to tackle a new challenge. And that was to shift into something very different. And since I have a hard time expressing brevity and lightness, the idea of working on joy and happiness seemed like a great opportunity and challenge. Soon after embracing the topic, I realized that joy and happiness are in fact very deep topics, which often are perceived as not serious, when in fact they carry a huge amount of weight and gravitas.
Q: Why did you change from creating predominantly in black and white to using color?
A: I have worked with color. My work tends to be really heavy on the black side and I have tried to balance it in the previous work. The approach that I have taken with color has very little to do with the actual significance of color in the world of art like for balance, composition, contrast, etc. Rather, I have always looked at color in terms of the world chakras and the idea of energy. Partially, this comes from the subjectivity of color to the audience. For example, the color red is considered lucky in many Asian cultures, but red has very different connotations in America like blood and violence. In the past, I have used colors rather sparingly basing them on different levels of energy.
I have thrown all of that away for this show. I am using color in a way that is all about producing contrast and specific forms of tension. I am specifically increasing levels of intensity to change the mood of something and to change the ways of interrelation. I have also been visiting hardware and paint stores in search of discarded or the ugliest colors. Fifty percent of the color being used on these paintings are discarded paints. I do that specifically because there is something beautiful about using colors that people don't want. It is reclaiming their power to produce something that is incredibly happy. It is fascinating to take something considered ugly and redirect the use and intention of the use of color.
Q: Can you discuss your creative process for this exhibition? How did your understanding of the theme change as you created each day?
A: Historically through the process of meditation and the intensity of focus that I had, I would make ten to fifteen drawings or paintings of various sizes a day. I have not painted in a long time because I was in the process of moving to Sweden. When I first started the works for this show, I started by making one painting with one idea and every painting has a title. For this show, I set a theme or title for a single day and tried to exhaust the theme. I found that one painting is not enough to express all of the themes. It required a longer exploration and meditation.
Q: How does the environment you are currently living in change how you create? How does the external journey mirror or contrast the internal journey?
A: It is unavoidable that the external and the internal journey are linked. I meditate before I paint. My meditation process is not to isolate or remove myself, but to embed myself in the present moment and the place I am in. So, the impact of a particular location is huge in my work. I started painting in Japan and the energy is very calm and there is a very subtle vibration. Then, I went to Hawaii and it was completely the opposite. It was like riding a bull. I have noticed that every city and every place has a slight connotation to it. Here in Sweden, there is a peace and tranquility that occurs that is incredibly favorable for me. It is very easy to incorporate into my work. Two days ago, someone saw my work up on the wall and said, “Oh, I see Sweden has changed your color palette.” This show is a nice association with Sweden. It’ll be something new that I have never done before.
Q: What will you take away from the process of creating this exhibition? What was challenging about creating this exhibition and what came easy? Did you have an epiphany during this process?
A: I had a moment of epiphany when I was painting “To Remain Unmoved by the Winds of Happiness.” The epiphany was this incredible sense that in order to really be still and find the joy that I am looking for and that I believe is who I am at my core, there has to be an appreciation of all the stuff that comes with it. It is not subtraction or removal of things, but layering. It is so easy to think “If I can just find peace by not having the annoying things and people around you,” but if you do that you lose the flavor of life. Intellectually, I understood that there is an importance to openness and vulnerability, but the deepening that is happening is through the acceptance of the pains that you do not want. That acceptance builds up this layering that ultimately leads to how joy is found. You can not have the good stuff without the bad. The acceptance of it all is what makes life joyful.
Douglas Díaz ‘s Joy is Happiness for No Reason is showing at ria x gallery until July 29th.
