One of South America’s finest modern printmakers, Sergio Gonzalez-Tornero’s current works in his exhibit “At the Tribal Carving Shed” are a fusion of two distinct entities: a compulsion towards modernist form with its abstract notion and a fascination with the historic cultures of the Pacific Northwest. “I respond to their art above all, which I choose to see as a deeply spiritual and gloriously formalist view of life. I like to think that my work is an outsider?s painterly and ongoing romantic adventure into the spirit of the First Nations of the Northwest Coast of North America.” This connection began with the first of many visits to Haida Gsaii “Land of the Haida,” also known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, an archipelago located 100 miles off the coast of British Columbia and Alaska. The unique signature element of Sergio?s paintings is his use of red and white. For Sergio, red serves as a substitution for black. He feels that black is a cold and lifeless color and by using red, he is infusing energy and life into his works. According to the New York Times, “His way of putting paint to canvas shows how texture and volume can be represented by using fairly heavy-handed, and somewhat unusual, cross-hatching techniques. His emphasis on line may remind some of woodcuts, where the white of the paper, or in this instance, the white of the painted areas, suggests the pristine voids common to most woodcut prints.”