2008, White ground, aquatint, 40"w x 26"h
My work grows from the relationship between petroleum and the pervasive poverty seen in my country of origin, Venezuela. Two contrasting, yet interdependent worlds live and breathe simultaneously, sharing a symbiotic relationship. While endless possibilities underline the life of scant middle/upper classes, the poor cram in strikingly overlooked, ignored, and feared slums, which house eighty-five percent of the population. Poverty is palpable throughout the urban landscape, even though Venezuela sits on the largest oil reserve of the western hemisphere. I push these notions as an unfortunate remainder of the misery that has only deepened in the last decade. My work attempts to re-create the idea of the urban landscape in a series of fragile, unsteady structures that respond in a chaotic way to the city’s uneven topography.
Asphalt and tarpaper become eloquent vehicles to create images and forms that convey painful truths of my homeland. I also work with etchings and aquatints as well as oils underlined by watercolors.
Indifference is not an option. I feel compelled to raise awareness on this important, yet profoundly overlooked issue, through research and exploration of paintings that exude a hard reality of my homeland—a society threatened by current socio-political instability, framed by the fiasco of the current socialist revolution.
A Daimler Company
