Gerardo Rosales: Looking for a Hero, or, Whips, Whims, and Wigs, and Gio Ponti is Just an Excuse

Orange and red tears fall from the eyes of the girl, their shapes morphing into inverted hearts, buttocks, amoeba. If we imagine them as metal (as the title would suggest), their hard surfaces are pocked with intricately circling indentations. Perhaps these tears are diseased, perhaps filled with seed. And yet, despite her steadily flowing tears, many larger than her head, our protagonist seems calm. She may be levitating, her short, pink legs ending in white lace socks and black shoes like those a child might wear to her first communion. Her white dress is frilled, scalloped, gathered, puffed. She might actually be a floating confection. Behind her, a blue rocking horse is also covered in dots and ovals and organismy eyes. We see both of the horse’s eyes, too, which sit almost crossed, almost certainly stunned, one larger than the other. And in the background, which crawls immediately and intrusively behind them, foliage and flowers in greens and rusts, pink, teal, and brown, press in. In Metallic Tears, there is very little breathing room, we see no sky….