ART REVIEW : CUEVAS’ DRAWINGS PORTRAY EVILS OF ‘INTOLERANCE’

LA JOLLA — Something terribly wrong is going on in Jose Luis Cuevas’ pictures. Figures are oddly deformed, contorted, their heads bulbous and gnarled as if laid upon the page and pressed into submissive flatness. With noses like snouts and stubbornly downturned lips, they gaze obliquely, complacently, across a shallow, stagelike space, never meeting each other’s eyes and only glassily meeting ours. A nightmarish aura of discomfort reigns. In some images, overt signs of danger and oppression can be discerned.

To navigate this netherworld, it helps to know that the 50 ink and watercolor drawings by Cuevas at the Tasende Gallery (820 Prospect St.) were inspired by Gustav Henningsen’s 1980 book, “The Witches’ Advocate,” an investigation into the persecution of witches in the Basque provinces during the Spanish Inquisition.

Henningsen contends that the inquisitors singled out for suspicion first those members of society who were weak--the elderly, poor or crippled--or generally undesirable, and transformed them into monsters through accusations and torture. Cuevas’ drawings capture the mysterious horror of this destructive process.

Collectively titled “Intolerance,” the drawings make little recognizable reference to their specific historical context, but vividly evoke universal themes of violence, cruelty and injustice. Cuevas achieves this by creating portraits and tableaux, ambiguously sordid scenes that imply narrative without clearly identifying characters, setting or plot. Cuevas claims to derive the resultant incoherence and absurdity of his images from the style of early silent comedies, though in his version the tragic dramatically outweighs the comic.

From the titles of the drawings (all from 1983), we can distinguish that some of the subjects are inquisitors, some victims and some portrayals of the artist himself. All, however, are depicted with equal doses of empathy and disdain, even the horned devil said to be the witches’ collaborator and god.

In his self-portraits, the artist situates himself with both victims and inquisitors, neither glorifying the former nor consistently condemning the latter. Only in the stark, full-frame portraits of “The Inquisitors” and “The Executioner” does Cuevas wield a wholly accusing pen, rendering his subjects as ruthless, beady-eyed and evil.

Other than a few such blatant clues, Cuevas provides no handy guide to identify the good guys from the bad. His democratic approach testifies to the equal humanity of both. In this respect, Cuevas strikes an affinity with the British painter Francis Bacon. In the work of both artists, figures appear as if mutated or distorted, yet they remain essentially and irrevocably human.

Both Cuevas and Bacon reveal the darker, unpolished side of humanity, the side that can’t tolerate differences but can tolerate and even witness the persecution of others. They teach that cruelty may indeed be intrinsic to humans. However more palatable it may be to associate savage thoughts and deeds only with monsters, Cuevas and Bacon make us swallow the notion that what looks monstrous on the outside is actually human on the inside.

Cuevas, born in Mexico in 1934, has developed an international reputation for his graphic style and biting commentary. His work is grounded in history and literature. The voices of such diverse cultural spokesmen as Buster Keaton and Fyodor Dostoevsky intermingle in Cuevas’ attitude of ridicule, disdain and sorrow toward the human condition.

Influences from the graphic tradition also merge in Cuevas’ work. In his collage of 41 self-portraits, all made on his birthday in 1983, Cuevas’ hand is imbued with the simplicity and grace of Picasso. In most other work, Cuevas mimics the old masters’ methodical manner of hatching and cross-hatching to transform linear patterns into convincingly shaded forms. His lines, sometimes sinuous, sometimes driven into the paper like impassioned spikes, read like messages direct from the imagination.

Despite a pervasive grotesqueness of form and subject matter, Cuevas’ works manage to avoid sensationalism. Nude figures appear entirely unerotic, instead plagued, burdened and enslaved by their tumorous flesh. Violence, as well, is subdued, though intangibly present, just as the strange, shadowy environment in which the figures operate is composed more of atmosphere and mood than architecture and landscape. Tonal washes of smoky gray, brown and occasionally crimson contribute their formless ambiance to Cuevas’ potent scenes.

In several drawings, Cuevas works the surface until it is as rough, torn and abused as his subjects. In his portrait of a judge, he scars the subject’s ruddy face with slashes of red and ocher, as if inflicting upon him the torture to which he sentences others.

The rawness of Cuevas’ imagery and themes make this a difficult and disturbing show to view, but one with haunting intensity and substantial, enduring power. The exhibition, accompanied by a comprehensive and well-illustrated catalogue, continues through Aug. 18.