Fernando Cano starts the conversation by announcing, “I’m three years pregnant.” Unexpected, to say the least! “This is my baby,” Cano says, gesturing to the entirety of a restaurant under construction on Lucerne Avenue in Lake Worth Beach. It’s the brainchild of Sub-Culture Group restaurateur Rodney Mayo and PureHoney artist of the month Cano. Called Man Ray, after the avant-garde pioneer, it will open as the latest outpost in Sub-Culture’s Dadaist empire.
Born in Barranca, Peru, in 1964, Cano is the restaurant group’s in-house artist — the upshot of a relationship with Mayo that dates back a few years to a first encounter Cano remembers well. “I was working for a construction company, and we did some work for him,” Cano says on a recent visit to Man Ray, lingering outside beneath the shade of a large canvass umbrella. “I told him I graduated in the fine arts back in Peru and in residential planning and design in the United States. So, before he let me try a mural, he tried me first on [painting] a bathroom. He said, ‘Can you do this?’ All the time, he keeps asking, ‘Can you do this? How about this?’ But when you graduate in art and design, there is nothing you cannot do.”
Evidence of Cano’s capabilities spreads from the design of the outdoor mural anchoring Man Ray to its seating, tables, bathrooms, and ceiling. A construction worker stops Cano to confer on a drill bit before Cano returns to the subject of Mayo. “He has 800 people working for him and 24 restaurants. I don’t know how he does it. Also, he likes dogs, so he has a dog shelter. I see him once a month when he needs something. But we have a good connection.” Their shared visions for artistic design can also be found throughout West Palm Beach at The Hacienda (coming soon), Hullabaloo, and H3 Dog Rescue.
For Man Ray, Cano has drawn a monumental representation of Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, swapping out the original biblical grouping for luminaries of early- to mid-century Paris, rendered in charcoal and painted with acrylic house paint. Like Man Ray’s photography, it’s in black and white. Each cultural icon at the table is identified by a name tag or place card.
Arranged for dinner in Cano’s mural are: Antonin Artaud, Balthus, Alexander Calder, Coco Chanel, Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, and Gertrude Stein, with Man Ray himself occupying the Jesus position at the center of the table. “Coco Chanel modeled for Vogue with Man Ray as her photographer in 1924,” Cano says. The mural reflects Man Ray’s influential approach to fashion photography, which emphasized sharp contrasts between light and shadow.
“Man Ray portrayed all the most amazing people at the time; the time of Dada,” Cano says, referencing the artistic and literary movement formed in response to the disasters of World War I. “When Rodney assigned me the job, I was like, ‘What do I do with this mural?’ I decided it’s The Last Supper. But I don’t put food because these guys are messed up,” he says with a laugh.
Instead, he explains, “It is called La Bohème, like the Charles Aznavour song.” The 1965 chanson, about a painter looking back at his Parisian heyday, is a wistful farewell to the artistic French life of old. And in this bohemian last supper tableau, Cano points to a figure cheekily peering around the leaves at the shenanigans happening at the dinner table: “This is Rodney over here hiding in the bushes.”
Historical references are the bedrock of the establishment’s design, and Cano leads PureHoney inside to see the bathrooms, hallway, and bar, where he has also painted and collaged all things Dada and Man Ray. Cano covered every inch of the bathrooms with quotes by the artist, and freehand sketches of figures, swirls, and eyes. “The eyes are very important for the pictures,” Cano says. The eyes appear again on the ceiling collage above the bar’s chairs and throughout the outdoor bathrooms as well. “Ultimately, for me, Dada is like the second French Revolution, but for art. Dada is a declaration of independence, a Magna Carta,” Cano says.
Man Ray opens Wednesday, August 12. Come as someone else for entry! Learn more about Man Ray at sub-culture.org/man-ray ~ Kelli Bodle
