4 Mexican artists affected by their past

I am excited to find these contemporary Mexican artists because their work gives evidence to the influence of their distant Aztec past.

DANIEL LEZAMA

His paintings are violent, often nude, horrific, dark with overtones of human sacrifice and bad stuff. Definately not what I want on my diner wall for a relaxing evening at home. He is talking about contradictions between then and now.  For example one painting has a car and a naked child on it. They don’t go together in normal life today. Did they in Lazama’s Aztec past? Not the car, perhaps the naked child.

ABRAHAM CRUZVILLAGAS

Here is a Mexican visual artist. His fame is with using found objects.  I like his installation art using stuff that was thrown away. His past has influenced him by the fact that he grew up poor and his parents built their house using found objects. His identity is in the slums of a poor Mexican village. His awesome sculptures are assemblages of discarded material.

AC: Blind Self Portrait: Glasgow-Cove Park 2008 Abraham Cruzvillegas born 1968 Presented by the American Fund for the Tate Gallery, courtesy of the Latin American Acquisitions Committee with additional assistance from Jack Kirkland 2012 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T13779

 

 

AC: Blind Self Portrait: Glasgow-Cove Park 2008 Abraham Cruzvillegas born 1968 Presented by the American Fund for the Tate Gallery, courtesy of the Latin American Acquisitions Committee with additional assistance from Jack Kirkland 2012 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T13779

DR LAKRA

Wow. I found a Mexican tattoo artist. Awesome. He also tattoos objects or images he finds. Tattoos  are part of Mexican culture since Aztec times. This guys work is Mixtec. His designs are inspired by the Aztec gods and spirit world.

 

BESTABEE  ROMERO

This is a female artist in her 50s  who use everyday materials combined with Mexican symbols or topics to talk about relevant issues such as migrants. Everything she creates is grounded in Mexican history and tradition and in this way she is keeping it alive I guess. In her work the two cultures Aztec and Mexican draw on each other.

 

Does this give context to my ideas for Subject or am I missing a piece or am I on the wrong path?! Hopefully time will tell.

More ideas for Subject

Media: paint and/or ink

Main thought as I work: hope in my suffering (by His stripes we are healed; by His wounds we are made whole)

Research: style, process, purpose, influence of contemporary Mexican art, Aztec art before conquest (Nuttal Codex), Aztec art after conquest (Florentine Codex).

Tattoos – surface decoration, geometric, non representational (part of society, pain involved, meaning)

Sculpture – wood, clay, paint ( aztec gods vs cross)

Feathers- symbolic colours (crown of thorns contrast with feather head dress)

Feel as if I am not getting anywhere in my ideas that is personal or relevant to my work. Took a year out and now I am struggling to know where I am!?

 

My first ideas for Subject

Topic : Suffering (because my year out has been about the suffering in mental illness)

Crazy contrast: Aztec art (because I like it and because I am studying it for          Constellation and because there was suffering in the violent culture) and my art.

Size: small, lots (a wall), half in Aztec style and half in my style?

Fridays: go to life drawing for hands, back, feet, head (to depict Christ’s suffering)

Cultural comparison of religious art: Aztec gods demand blood vs Christian God demanded blood to forgive sin (cross)

About: clash of two cultures coming together in one art piece.

Wow! This is harder than I thought. Something doesn’t feel right, like a dress that doesn’t fit well so you keep pulling it down. Maybe I am too consciously influenced by my disertation (Constellation) research in Subject.