The odyssey of the gods: the art of Henry Bermudez

 There is an experience to the art of Henry Bermudez that initially baffles us. It is clearly rife with symbols of a religious nature, but why?

My earliest sense of Henry’s work was that it was surrealistic, and I have long held the appearance of surrealism to be a sign of a troubled time. To me, European surrealism was an invention that envied the power of religious art. By its own manifesto it attempted to reintroduce the mysterious and magical aspects of gods and spirits. 

In my eyes, that wasn’t what the surrealists achieved — even Da Chirico, who is my favorite, achieves the metaphysical, but the gods are missing. Much of European surrealism amounts to the dilemma that began the movement: a kind of “Waiting for Godot” by visual means. 

But off in the ex-colonies of Spain, a very different thing happened. There the religion of the conqueror and his conquered religions entered into strange embraces. The mystical believers among the natives entered into syncretisms that sometimes offered hope and peace, even in dangerously innocent ways. 

Henry Bermudez becomes the pilgrim of all these gods, searching the world on an odyssey to map the odyssey of the gods. He is the only person like that that I know. Even without having had to leave the socialist demise of his native Venezuela, Henry would still have had enough exploration in his life to be the friend of all the gods. 

In this way, Henry Bermudez is the international artist, but for more reasons than only his travels. He has fashioned a quest for the meanings of history, for the substance of why people acted with belief but behaved like monsters. 

You should have a gentle man like this at the United Nations, or at least his art, for it is a record of the knots in our hearts. Nothing can really be understood or propitiated without facing his forest, his gold diggers’ sky of gold, his Aztec feathered serpent wrapping itself around Giotto’s crucifix to die out of love for its people by imitating the religion of Columbus. You would really break down in tears to realize the impossible knots of pain the gods go through for us, trying to save everyone from all sides, but failing so much. 

These are very fragile codices. Henry’s work becomes more and more made of paper cutouts, hung on the wall by push pins, ready to travel again, rolled up for easy and lightweight transport. The spirit gets light, the soul ascends to somewhere else. The gods decide and try to set things right.