The notion of the everyday has come to mean the banal, the boring, and the mundane. They are the daily tasks that make up our routines or the overlooked places where we exist in between momentous occasions. For Edgar Cano, however, he reconceives how we look at the everyday through elaborate transportative scenes and a disruptive approach to the realm of oil painting. The day-to-day, in the surreal worlds of Edgar Cano, is one that examines the unknown and the unpredictable. He takes us to the intimate moments we hide away, the bizarre objects we now find ordinary, and the emotional states made manifest. Cano envisions the chaos of life itself as commonplace. The worlds he builds teeter between fact and fiction. Bringing together live models, settings, and even archival photographs to form his subjects, they inevitably devolve into a crazed vision of reality. It is naturalistic approach, but rather than lean into photorealism, he breaks with tradition, he finds ways to incorporate a more gestural hand, creating movement, uncertainty, and unexpected patterns. Where he once focused on more neutral palettes, we witness his embracing of brilliant and bold colors. Toying with their placement to add an otherworldly aura, enhance the tension between subjects, or even evoke a resonating, maddening sensation in his viewers. Our role as viewers is called into question. We are engaged in a relationship of seeing alongside the subject and the artist himself. Amidst the brilliant colors and fantastical elements, there is something familiar. In providing a glimpse into Cano’s own lived experiences, be it through a distorted prismatic lens, the routine nature of nonsensical moments within our own lives is brought into focus.

Charles Moore 

Curator

NY, 2023