Detail of Enoc Perez's Beck House, 2016

On view at the Dallas Contemporary through June 3^rd, Enoc Perez’s show, Liberty and Restraint, features paintings of architect Phillip Johnson’s work in Texas. What’s not to love about pretty [I mean that as a compliment] paintings of mostly pretty buildings? And what some of the buildings may lack, the paintings more than make up for. 

From what I’ve read, Perez’s pre-2010 works employed a type of printing. He has since then painted with a brush, often mimicking the look of the original printed works. [Kind of reverse Warhol: early on painting to mimic printing and later employing mostly printing in his work.] Most of those on display here do. He paints only a few in a more conventional manner – The Crescent and the Catherdal of Hope if I remember correctly. I wonder why those? 

It’s interesting the differing degree to which Perez makes the building less immediately recognizable by offsetting and overlapping the image in different colors. Houston’s Williams Tower is only recognizable because Perez leaves its crown poking out of the overlapped vertical and horizontal “prints.” The arches of Dallas’ Beck House are visible, but the overall form is less so in places. Houston's Menil House is virtually unrecognizable. 

Since he’s painting these by hand, it’s unlikely that the variation is as haphazard as it might be if they were just like big potato prints. It would be interesting to know his thought process. I would think [a presumption] he uses the buildings like other artists have –to explore painting – and that ultimately the works are less about the buildings than they might appear to be.