Rigoberto A Gonzalez 

Painter

  

The Rest on the Flight to Egypt Oil on Linen 5ft x 6ft 2019 

             

Artist Statement

The border is an area with a long history. It’s an area I am fascinated with and find rich with subject matter and have decided to make it the focus of my work. The border in Spanish is called La frontera. the word frontera is more similar in the imagery it conjures up in the mind to the word frontier. It conjures up adventure, the west, the unsettled, the edge, wild and untamed, the land beyond, the unknown. People see it on a map and think a river divides it where America is in the north were everyone speaks English, and Mexico is in the south where Spanish is spoken. But the border is not that clear. It is a region where there is the confluence of two cultures, where the river not so much divides but unites. Along both sides of the river, the land is very much its own unique culture. It is a land that, symbolically at least, is not Mexico and is not the United States

Most of my adult life I have spent in the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico on the border. I am a painter working primarily on large scale mural size oil paintings. The theme running through my current paintings is a merger of the visual vernacular of the Baroque and current border issues affecting Mexico and the United States – families whose lives have been affected by social economic conflicts such as immigration policies and the war on drugs. It is the dramatic lives and stories of everyday individuals from border communities whose narratives inspire me to capture their stories on canvas. Usually a painting will be inspired by the recitation of  family member  who has experienced an especially evocative moment in their life. I always try to depict the moment at its most dramatic episode using strong lights and darks (chiaroscuro) to accentuate the narrative.

 For several years the NEWS media has been reporting stories on the rising numbers of families especially children immigrating to the U.S. and the escalating violence on the border between the U.S. and Mexico. Being a native to the region, I realized that the sound bites (such as the words “illegal, immigrant, migrant, refugee and anchor baby”) were not fully capturing the complexity of the situation. This visual arts project portraying the border concerns will expand upon the current media reports and express the voices of the people affected by these events and promote awareness and dialogue. This is too big a story to report through raw journalism.  It is important for me as an artist to address contemporary concerns and create a visual record portraying these events with an artistic sensibility. Drawing inspiration from the Mexican muralists, I believe that painting can evoke an authentic aesthetic experience that conveys meaning in people’s lives and work as a catalyst for change.