Merida’s Book (2021)
4x6 in
Acrylic on photographic paper

cover.jpg
 

Venezuelan art has several problems. The first one is the lack of attempts to create online archives of the artworks made during the XX century.

I asked my little sister to take pics of all my Venezuelan Art books and send them to me.

While looking at the images that will disappear due to the lack of interest by our selves in making the work to keep them alive I decided to have a conversation with the Venezuelan “Francis Bacon” Alirio Rodriguez and his sketchbook on the suffering in Hiroshima.

I never quite understood why he was doing artwork on the sufferings of people that were so different from him. I guess more than a real motif it was an excuse to produce a series of artworks with the imagery of the nuclear bomb.

I took his images and printed them at Walgreens. Once having the prints I started this dialogue with his work changing the motif for Merida instead of Hiroshima. I know Merida and I know it’s suffering. I can talk about it.

I called Alirio’s Gallerist because I wanted to show my work to Alirio. He died but no Venezuelan newspaper or art critic talked about it.