Help me find these modern "Heaven" and "Hell" paintings again
January 16, 2016 7:06 PM   Subscribe

I saw a pair of amazing paintings in San Jose, CA, around 2007. They were called "Heaven" and "Hell", and each showed a very detailed fantasy cityscape on a hill, covered in freeways.

"Hell" was much darker and smoggier (as you might expect). They were very large paintings, and had either actual little lights, or embedded studs that looked like lights, for streetlights. The artist was male, living (at least at the time) and had a Spanish or Portugese name. Google has only found historic/religious paintings (Bosch, etc), and these were definitely painted in the last 20 years or so, and seemed like more of a social justice commentary than a religious statement. I've always remembered them because they were so damn cool, and I'd really like to find them again. Help me, Metafilter!
posted by Nibbly Fang to Media & Arts (4 answers total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
do you remember where in san jose you saw them (i.e. museum, gallery, resturant, etc.)?
posted by koroshiya at 7:35 PM on January 16, 2016


Best answer: This doesn't seem quite right, but Sandow Birk's illustrations of the Divine Comedy?
posted by gingerbeer at 7:57 PM on January 16, 2016 [4 favorites]


Response by poster: do you remember where in san jose you saw them (i.e. museum, gallery, resturant, etc.)?

They were at the San Jose Museum of Art.


This doesn't seem quite right, but Sandow Birk's illustrations of the Divine Comedy?


No, that's them! I totally remembered the artist's name as Spanish, but I also remembered two paintings, so, memory is weird, I guess. I didn't know they were from books. Thanks so much!
posted by Nibbly Fang at 11:57 PM on January 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


Glad that was it! It turns out he's done a few exhibits of it at the San Jose Museum of Art.
2012
2010
2005
posted by gingerbeer at 6:18 PM on January 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


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