Fables

“Fables.”

Oil on unprimed paper. 9 x 12 in.

2023.

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Growing up in Venezuela, my generation was stripped from any feeling of normalcy.

However, we strived and did our best to enjoy ourselves. Yet we truly never knew what our country could actually offer; tales of the wealth and health of the past were ever present, but much of the remnants were being sucked away by the very few that were drunk with power.

Bacchus would have flushed.

So, growing up, I was never truly interested in what this country might give me because I knew I would be deceived. It didn’t mean that I didn’t love it, but we were and still are, sorely disappointed. I wasn’t interested, my attention laid elsewhere, the English language provided so much escape I could learn about the whole world and not my own, and I did just that.

I don’t think none of us truly knew what that country once was. We weren’t there to experience it.

This painting is about that idea of loss, about a ghost who wanders in a landscape it can’t touch or feel. The Amazon Forest provides beasts and wonders seldom seen by men, yet he can’t fully interact with it because he’s not really there. His body and mind are elsewhere.

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January 12th, 2024 – 4:05PM.