Gonzales appropriates slick advertisements and subverts them, giving benignly beautiful women a dark, dangerous edge. In a quartet of oil-on-canvas paintings, feminine power is depicted as underhanded and subtle, but no less destructive. Animal avatars stalk the scene or lie in wait in the shadows, giving form to the predatory instincts that lurk behind glamorous masks.

The cat, present in all works but one, is a creature laden with symbolism. Widely associated with “feminine wiles and sexual aggression,” felines are significant elements in Olympia, Édouard Manet’s painting of a courtesan; and Dora Maar au Chat, Pablo Picasso’s painting of his lover. Gonzales, too, employs the cat as an additional albeit oblique reference to schemes and subterfuge whether lying on a sofa, keeping to itself at the edge of the picture, or lounging at the feet of a femme fatale.

Another important animal in the artist’s menagerie is the dog. The snapping beast that explodes from the shadows of Gonzales’ paintings is far from man’s best friend. Instead, with its gaping maw and exaggerated canines, it is an embodiment of brute force. Contrasted against the innocuous and aloof mien of a cat, the dog’s overt display of violence pits two survival strategies against each other. When sophisticated manipulation is challenged by raw power, which side will win? 

Also making multiple appearances in You Can’t Make an Omelette without Breaking Eggs is the serpent, the original fork-tongued trickster whose silken words led to the Fall of Man and humankind’s expulsion from paradise. Described in the Bible as “craftier than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made,” the snake is a cold-blooded killer that sinks its venomous fangs into its victims, squeezes them to death, or swallows them whole.  

A close read of Feel the Urge shows how Gonzales uses these beasts to expose the chess-like machinations and political stratagems that afflict human relationships. The power dynamic manifested in a man ardently embracing an impassive woman is negated by the drama portrayed by their respective animal avatars. A ferocious dog emerging from the depths of the man’s overcoat reveals the man’s belief in himself as the aggressor. The woman, who might easily be judged by a casual observer as a victim, turns out to be more than capable of defending herself against his advances. In this little tableau, she may even be the predator. A snake wraps around her shoulder like a scarf and hides underneath her bare legs, where it proceeds to devour its prey in secret. Who is the hunter, who is the hunted? Is her lover a man or a mouse?

Elsewhere in his canvases, Gonzales drops tantalizing hints—a mirror, a skull, a bouquet of white flowers, and a hand reaching out from a confining purse—to add mystery and intrigue to his narratives. As an artist, he is deeply interested in peeping behind façades and teasing out the false civilities that hold society together. The animal psyche, the Freudian id of his subjects is as attractive to him as their pretense. Gonzales takes a page from Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine diplomat who lent his name to one of the personality traits in the so-called dark triad: “Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.” — ll