"To be able to capture the customs, the ideas and the appearance of my era, according to my own judgment; to be not only a painter, but also a man; in a word, to make living art – that is my goal“
"To be able to capture the customs, the ideas and the appearance of my era, according to my own judgment; to be not only a painter, but also a man; in a word, to make living art – that is my goal“
Gustave Courbet
The streets of Latin America have become, for Guache, a vast borderless space where his pictorial work leaves a mark of freedom and reflection on passersby. Places called “non-places,” a term introduced by French philosopher Marc Augé, who defined them as those transient places that are not important enough to be considered “places,” are the spaces that Guache brings to life and intervenes in, in order to capture a cause, a denunciation, or simply to leave a trace of our popular culture, of the stories of communities, of the Afro-Caribbean peoples who historically, and logically, represent ancestral Latin American culture. “Freeing the image, so that it may live without owners, without clients, without schedules or delivery deadlines, without censorship, without aesthetic pretensions,” (Guache 2012) is the essence of his work, which is reflected in the most honest way.
A historical-ancestral process can clearly be seen in his work; his murals are a clear example of respect for the elders who passed down their knowledge to us, knowledge that time, globalization and the system have tried to bury. Food, animals, the forest, medicine, rituals – all are part of a whole discourse and iconography that has come to be characterized as one's own (without truly being so).
Art has to move people, to reach them, and not become a prepackaged discourse to be explained. It has to serve a purpose. Hence, Guache, with his screen prints, paintings and graffiti, forcefully conveys a figurative message of equality, awareness, reason and, most importantly, respect for who we are, Qux Uleu[1]: spirits of the earth.
The exhibition titled Indios del Asfalto, opening on April 30 starting at 6:00p.m. in the virtual
Juan David Quintero
Collection Researcher