Let’s try now to connect the dots: Sarmiento’s title is Deseo y Posibilidad (“Desire and Possibility”). But the possibility of desire seems almost an oxymoron. On the one hand, human desire is doubly infinite: We are perpetually unsatisfied when we get what we want, and we are capable of wanting anything at all. On the other hand, desire eventually must consume itself.

This dynamic is conveyed in the Shakespeare’s Ulysses: “Since appetite is a universal wolf, / so doubly seconded with will and power […] it must make perforce a universal prey, / and last eat up himself.” If desire is both infinite and self-consuming, what possibility is there for desire?

The answer must be sought within Sarmiento’s images. Each painting or drawing reveals a certain possibility of desire, which inevitably leads to a desire of some other possibility. It’s as if possibility kept biting desire’s tail, or the other way around.

Here are some –possible- leads:

1. There are heads and members. In “Deseo y Posibilidad” a blue ox appears headless, its legs amputated, suspended in midair (being ridden by a green frog). The ox’s thin erected penis contrasts with the ox’s head on the ground -which as a stubborn decapitated witness spits the show’s title as a speech bubble. A star in the orange sky announces the event, which -in the final analysis- is nothing more than a staged scene. In other words, possibility staging desires. Coming back to Sarmiento’s members and heads, which of the ox’s two “heads” is better suited for desire?
2. To be “inside” is a matter of “facing it.” Caution: you’ll always be watched: A smiling naked male looks inside the face/mouth of a female. She sits naked on his body, but they do not mate. Instead, her long fiber-optic-like black hair goes inside a hole and comes out through another not far away, transformed as a head. Then the female’s hair/head watches. Is it possible for desire to detach itself from its source?
3. Desire looks at itself in the mirror of possibility. Sarmiento seems to suggest that sight hurts. As a naked female sits still next to a hole on the ground with her legs spread showing her vulva, two frogs and a one-eyed butterfly look intently. One frog comes close to the female vulva; its long, agile sticky tongue getting all excited. Is it the sweet scent of the female vulva? Or is the female vulva a metaphor for the very sight of possibility? Better yet, is possibility itself the sight of desire?
4. Beauty hurts. Her big-eyed face is filled with sprouting, thorny flowers coming out of flesh wounds all over her body. Why? Beauty shows itself as pleasure, a pleasure superior -in its refinement and violence- to all other pleasures. The glittering stars above sense it. Frogs know beauty, which is why they lay low and smile approvingly.

Is beauty not the fruit of possibility? Which brings forth a parallel idea: Without desire, is there possibility at all?

Alfredo Triff
Miami, 2010

Such is the case of his solo exhibition “Burning In His Own Hell” open to the public at Edge Zones Art Center and curated by Joaquin Badajoz and Carlos Luna. Delving into the world of Sarmiento is an experience not without risks. We approach a slippery slope: taboo subjects that the artist strips out of all sententious tone providing them with an air of amusement and sarcasm. Lust then becomes a cornerstone sustaining a very personal iconography where tongues of fire, roses, penises, knives, dogs panting, sharp breasts, horns, snakes and ladders seduce us fueling desire.

From the formal standpoint, the work of Sarmiento is strident. Colors scream. The glowing orange, yellow and red, far from toning down with the blue and purple, spread out in their entire splendor tempting us to contagious. There is much of the French Fauvism in these explosive colors where dare is essential. Then, the semantic analogy emerges: fauve in French means wild beast. The capricious detail becomes indispensable key for the understanding of Sarmiento’s artwork that is mostly a unique bestiary through which the artist recreates mythological characters inspired in our daily life: The truth to our innermost fantasies and desires.

Its graceful characters are typically caricatures. They owe largely to the pop, the comics, the world of design and illustration, areas in which the artist has formal background. Accordingly, this iconic characters, act as entelechy of desire: Dual symbols -bizarre and grotesque creatures- that speak to us about obscenity, carnality and sin. The use of mythological icons like the snake and the dragon emphasize this sense of bestiary as well as titles that occasionally introduce a pretended moralistic sense in the midst of these unparalleled urban myths where often the artist is the protagonist.

“Burning In His Own Hell” is an appealing exhibition with high doses of humor. Urban chronicle of our sexual urges and desires, Sarmiento’s solo show is an unbiased contemporary bestiary that with frankness and without remorse opens and liberates us.

Janet Batet
Miami, June 27th, 2010
El Nuevo Herald

Tal es el caso de su exposición personal Burning in his Own Hell (Ardiendo en su propio infierno) ahora a disposición del público en Edge Zones Art Center, gracias a la curaduría de Joaquín Badajoz y Carlos Luna.

Adentrarse en el universo de Sarmiento es una experiencia no exenta de riesgos. En primera instancia porque el artista se maneja en un terreno movedizo, tomando temas tabús que despoja de todo tono sentencioso y dotándolos de un aire divertido y socarrón. La lujuria entonces deviene piedra angular sustentadora de una iconografía muy personal donde lenguas de fuego, rosas, penes, cuchillos, canes jadeantes, pechos punzantes, cuernos, sierpes y escaleras nos seducen avivando el deseo.

Desde el punto de vista formal, la obra de Sarmiento es estridente. Los colores chillan. Los ardientes naranjas, amarillos y rojos, lejos de atemperarse ante los azules y morados, irradian en todo su esplendor e invitan al contagio. Hay mucho del fauvismo francés en este escándalo cromático donde la provocación se instala como elemento central. Y es que la analogía semántica –fauve en francés significa fiera– es clave esencial para la comprensión de la obra de Sarmiento, que es, ante todo, un bestiario único a través del cual el artista recrea personajes mitológicos inspirados en nuestra cotidianidad: el acertijo a nuestras quimeras y apetitos más internos.

Sus gráciles personajes tienen mucho de caricatural. Asistimos a símbolos deudores en gran medida del cómic y del mundo del diseño, esfera en la que tiene formación el artista. Así, sus figuras-íconos actúan como entelequias del deseo. Símbolos duales –estrambóticos y grotescos protagonistas– que nos hablan de obscenidad, carnalidad y pecado.
El empleo de íconos mitológicos como la serpiente y el dragón enfatizan este sentido de bestiario, lo mismo que los títulos que introducen en ocasiones el carácter moralizante de estas fábulas urbanas sin par, donde muchas veces el mismo artista se erige protagonista.

Burning in his Own Hell es una exposición interesante con alta dosis de humor. Crónica urbana de nuestros impulsos sexuales y deseos, la muestra constituye un desprejuiciado bestiario contemporáneo que, sin tapujos ni remordimientos, nos desnuda y libera.

Janet Batet
Miami, 27 de junio de 2010
El Nuevo Herald

It is no coincidence that Joaquin Badajoz presented us in his words the author of “Burning in His Own Hell” as a sort of postmodern Dante. One would have to speculate whether the invocation is more comprehensive. For if the thesis of Eduardo Sarmiento was limited to Mephistophelian introspection of human nature, the equation is valid. But along with it, as it happened when Botticelli needed to comment the on the “Nastagio degli Onesti”, in Sarmiento’s “evocation”, there is also the consensus by lyrical decree and humanistic content, the ego-poetic contributions of Dante and of Petrarch.

Sarmiento satirizes the historical order of human passion. He does so without taboos or prejudice, because it is precisely with this lack of freedom he polemizes. Or for better words, he confronts us with cynicism, which is perhaps the brazen quality that can effectively clean up the mind poisoned by centuries of hypocrisy. Assume in each of his images, episodes of endocrine dramas which are unleashed in the privacy of the subject. The self Hell of Sarmiento is an incinerator of coexistence vices and social repressions. Fed by vernacular fires which burn moral debates about sexuality and its emotional superstructure, confronted with the responsibility that one must initiate the fire.

He presents the work formally from a naive point of view between the legacy of Fauvism and sub-subtropical heretic symbolism. Perhaps with some primitive inland sarcasm vaguely reminiscent Feijoo of Villa Clara, Cuba hand mixed with the presence of Dali’s erotic dreams. His intense saturated colors, although high in temperature are not classifiable as Caribbean. They are tinted by the postmodern estrangements which today makes ambiguous the territorial affiliation of artists. The palette (or graphite) is stripped, dissimulating evidence of identity and plurarizing his discourse. Although he can not restrain certain instinct to vignettize, Sarmiento takes risk and jump on the repeated practice of design, deciding to get involved in painting. He is endowed with the pulse for it, a sense of color and subtle industriousness in the skill of insightfulness.

On the “cartooning” one would say it is the action consistent with a playful vision of his personal biography. For Sarmiento, the pains or dark areas of the human profile appear not in opposition to the way towards the light and to cheerfulness. His incendiary moral demonstrates a caustic and mischievous attitude, convenient for redressing life. Otherwise, his exorcist pending demons would consume him.They would gobble brushes, brain and viscera as well as the neat Parisian appearance of the artist.

Jesús Rosado
Miami, June 27th, 2010
TUMIAMIBLOG

No es mera coincidencia que Joaquín Badajoz nos presente en sus palabras al autor de Burning in His Ownhell como una suerte de Dante postmoderno. Habría que especular si la invocación es más abarcadora. Porque si la tesis de Eduardo Sarmiento se limitara a la introspección mefistofélica de la naturaleza humana, la equiparación vale. Pero junto con ello, tal como sucediera cuando Boticelli necesitó comentar el Nastagio degli Onesti, en la” boccación” de Sarmiento, también concurren por decreto lírico y contenido humanista, las contribuciones egopoéticas de Dante y de Petrarca.

Sarmiento satiriza el orden histórico de la pasión humana. Lo hace sin tabúes ni prejuicios, porque justamente es con esa falta de emancipación con lo que polemiza. O para decirlo en mejores palabras, la confronta con cinismo, que es quizás la cualidad desvergonzada que puede sanear con eficacia la mentalidad intoxicada por siglos de hipocresía. Asúmase en cada una de sus imágenes, episodios de los dramas endocrinos que se desatan en la intimidad del sujeto. La autohoguera de Sarmiento es un incinerador de vicios de convivencia y represiones sociales. Alimentada con leña vernácula combustiona el debate moral en torno a la sexualidad y su superestructura emocional, afrontándolo con la responsabilidad de iniciarlo por sí mismo.

Lo acomete formalmente desde un pulseo naive entre el legado del fauvismo y un simbolismo herético y subtropicalizado. Quizás con cierto sarcasmo primitivo de tierra adentro que recuerda vagamente al villaclareño Feijoo, batido a mano con la presencia del erotismo onírico de Dalí. Sus saturaciones, aunque de altas temperaturas, no son clasificables como caribeñas. Están teñidas por los extrañamientos postmodernos que hoy día hacen ambigua la filiación territorial de los creadores. La paleta (o el lápiz) se desarropa, disimula las evidencias de identidad y pluraliza su discurso. Aunque no pueda refrenar cierto instinto viñetero, Sarmiento toma riesgo y salta por sobre el repetido ejercicio del diseño, decidido a involucrarse en la pintura. Cuenta con pulso para ello y está dotado de sentido del color y laboriosidad sutil en el juego de profundidades.

Lo del “acartoonamiento” será el recurso consecuente con una visión lúdica de la propia biografía personal. Porque para Sarmiento las penas o las zonas oscuras del perfil humano no aparentan contraponerse al camino hacia la luz y el desenfado. Su moraleja incendiaria demuestra una actitud cáustica y jodedora, oportuna para el resarcimiento. De no ser así, lo devorarían sus demonios pendientes de exorcismo. Engullirían pincel, cerebro y vísceras y hasta la apariencia pulcramente parisina del artista.

Jesús Rosado
Miami, 27 de junio de 2010
TUMIAMIBLOG