Figs, Smokes, and Arturo's Work
2024, 16" x 20", acrylic on canvas, famed.
This painting is the setting for Charity and Penance.
Rocket Launcher 1990, 48” x 60” acrylic on canvas
This painting was inspired by seeing my piqué grandmother operating this industrial sewing machine to supplement her wages and contribute to our family. It also gave her independence in earning an income. Using acrylic paint in a squeeze tube, I expressed words in Spanglish and verses with imagery as the background sky.
Teotihuacan: Bolting Down the Culture, 1990-1991, 54" x 60", acrylic on canvas, framed.
My first visit to the pyramids of Teotihuacan in Mexico inspired this painting. It was the summer of 87, and using a TELACU Scholarship, I booked a flight to visit my sister, who was living in Mexico, DF. I walked up the steep stairs of the Pyramid of the Sun, and from there, exhaustively, I saw the Pyramid of the Moon. I wanted to bring the experience home in the most visual way I could. I wanted my experience to be fastened down with screws. I used an inverted pyramid with a stone goal, a hallmark of the ancient Pre-Columbian ball games, to impact my path to the future. The landscape represents the hills of City Terrace, and something enormous is coming home.
Blown Away Horizontally
1996, 8” x 20” acrylic on canvas
The Winds of City Terrace, 1990, 36” x 48”, acrylic on canvas, framed
My earliest painting of the two hills is City Terrace. I grew up on Floral Drive. Our house had a backyard with views of Rose Hills in Whittier, and I could feel the ocean breeze. I remember seeing the smoke coming from the Chicano Moratorium riot on August 29, 1970.
Rocket Over City Terrace, 1991, 48” x 60”, acrylic on canvas
This painting is a landscape of City Terrace in East Los Angeles. The center building is Self Help Graphics and Art. One side of the hill had a water tower, and the other had water tanks. The cross represents the Catholic Churches and their locations. Above the sky is a transparent rocket heading towards the City Hall of Los Angeles. Inside is my experience of climbing up the pyramids of Teotihuacan in Mexico.
The House on Stringer, 2007, 20” x 60”, acrylic on canvas
The house is based on a duplex in City Terrace. Sister Karen Bocclero rented the bottom and had a fig tree in the backyard. The house was going to be sold, so my wife and I purchased it, but by the time all the paperwork was done, Sister found another place down the street to live. The house sits on a branch. We rented it out to artists and actors for the next twelve years. It was our extension to support the arts in this area.
Photo of the actual house gentrified
In and Out
2024, 16” x 20”, acrylic on canvas, framed
.
El Llamado Dividido
1987, 30" x 40" silkscreen framed
Blown Away On 3802 Brooklyn Ave
2024, 56” x 64”, mixed media on canvas roll
The inspiration for this painting came from the
wall of the building on 3802 Avenida Cesar
Chavez, formerly known as Brooklyn Avenue.
At the start of of my arrival at Self Help Graphics, Eduardo Oropeza began plastering broken ceramic mosaics on the building.
Photo of the wall.
Incubation of Prints
2023, 27" x 30", two silkscreen prints weaved and adhered with brass fasteners.
In 2023, I participated in Self-Help Graphics
and Art's 50th Anniversary Paper Fashion Gala. I used several print editions, cut them into 1/2 vertical and horizontal strips, and then weaved them together. I had a lot of prints-
photo of skirts and backpack paper fashion of my sister and her granddaughter Abby wearing my paper fashion.
Algo Nuevo
1988, 26” x 28” two-color silkscreen, framed Paul Botello’s work in blue, printed by Oscar Dorado.
Welcome to Aztlan
1987, 26" x 40", silkscreen, framed
1994 Self Help Graphic, Galeria Otra Vez
8.5" x 11", newsprint, framed.
The original Galeria Otra Vez, Self Help Graphics Director's Choice newsprint magazine. It contains a short essay, "A Chicano Cultural Experience and a Director's Choice," twenty-eight pages of over 30 artists responding to the question, what makes Chicano Art?
Stories On 3802 Brooklyn Avenue
2024, 16” x 20”, acrylic on canvas, framed.
Juego De Pelota
1987, 24" x 31" silkscreen framed