EXAMINING THE MYTH WITHIN: LOMBARDI’S GODS AND MONSTERS

UNIVERSITY SPOTLIGHT
D. DOMINICK LOMBARDI: SAINTS, SINNERS AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
HAMPDEN GALLERY,
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST
131 SOUTHWEST CIRCLE, AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS
SEPTEMBER 10 THROUGH 29

by J. Fatima Martins

There are gods and monsters in each of us. One person’s hero is another person’s villain; as Joseph Campbell famously wrote, “You could be a local god, but for the people whom that local god conquered, you could be the enemy.” In the exhibition statement for “Saints, Sinners and the Collective Unconscious,” artist D. Dominick Lombardi wrote that his work is his “personal freedom.”

Our collective history and, therefore, unconscious, is haunted by saviors and destroyers, imaginative human-made entities derived from external and internal emotions and conditions. Our conscious struggle to break free from a mutual and vague imprisonment defines the human animal. It is our cultural intellectuals and artists who assist us is processing the truth.

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