SEEING WITH NEW EYES
On a recent trip to Oaxaca here in Mexico, I was captivated by the colorful street art and powerful graffiti found on walls throughout the city. Different form the ‘graffiti’ I was used to seeing in the US, which at its core seems more like vandalism or boundary marking between gangs, this was far more personal to me…. and more artistic in nature.
What I saw were people’s STORIES…. the personal images, words and symbols that have shaped their lives. This has always intrigued me, and from the Lascaux caves in France to the super-charged street art by Basquiat, graffiti has become a means to express one’s essential self for centuries… the Authentic Self.
Wall art in Oaxaca
A few newer pieces in my Collage and Mixed Media category of AVAILABLE ART are especially inspired by this trip to Oaxaca. They are intentionally more ‘raw’ and decidedly more ‘gutsy’ than my typical paintings. /available-paintings
“It’s A Matter of Perspective” and the companion piece “Keeping It Real” both include embedded photos I took while in Oaxaca and are an attempt to honor and portray the emotions I witnessed in these ‘stories’. In the piece I named “Keeping It Real”, the Spanish words Siempre Seas Tu Autentico translates as ‘always be your authentic self’. That resonates deeply for me, and is the emotion that I hope is transmitted and received through my own paintings.
There is another recent piece I created this year while still pondering the subject of ‘stories’. I named it “The Stories That Create Us”, which can also be found in the Collage and Mixed Media category of my work. I endeavored for this to appear as a page torn out of an old cave-inspired ‘journal’, with images that depict major life figures, the essence of hard work, and the striving toward a better life. On the back of this piece, I wrote the following:
When you look at a person, any person…. remember that everyone has a story.
Everyone has been through something that has forever changed them.
Detail from 'The Stories That Create Us'
'Keeping It Real'
