TUCSON MONTHLY
Written by - Kim Baker

Blessed Brushstrokes

Take a quick look at Daniel Martin Diaz's mixed-media paintings of saints and icons and you'll swear you've seen them before - in a museum, an old, dusty church, or an art history book back in college.There's something dark and tormented - yet familiar - about Diaz's images, seemingly drawn from Byzantine, Early Christian or Medieval art periods.

Look closer and you realize they're more bizarre and dreamlike than anything you'll find in conventional religious artwork. For example, how many, Virgin Mary's have you seen hanging over the alter lately, their hearts pierced with arrows?

The faces Diaz paints look both physically tortured and spiritually lost. Clothes weigh heavily on frail and jaundiced - looking bodies. Latin script and Tarot-like symbols placed in and around his figures suggest a deeper, more foreboding meaning. His images both become captivating and unsettling.

"Aegrimonia" a piece seemingly lifted from a 4th or 5th century religious illustrated manuscript, Diaz buried in dirt in his back yard and proceeded to pour water and various chemicals on it. He let the sun take care of the rest of the aging process.

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