Essays

Arturo Correa: In Search of Significance
Oct 3 - Nov 28, 2003 (Click here for Spanish Version)

Inner/Outer Search

by Zuleiva Vivas, Curator of Latin American Art, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela

The environment is now foggy and confusing our search for reality must turn inwards. This seems to be the guiding principle behind Arturo Correa's hands and thought. Correa is a Venezuelan artist whose creative venture has once again taken him back and forth between the United States and the heartland of Venezuela in the past few years. He studied art in Orlando and New York and he now does his work in Valencia, Carabobo, New York, Connecticut and Miami, while the main currents that have influenced his career stem from other artists born in his own country, who left a deep imprint on his restless, nostalgic soul.

Correa's pictorial skills are evidenced in his unique mastery of acrylic media, with which he creates oil-like textures, shades and transparencies on blank canvas. Arturo's art combines faultless technique and the poignant message conveyed by his characters. These are remembrances from his childhood, old toys that have grown into ghosts.

There are other components to his creative worldview: ironic encoded text and somewhat perverse figures that the young artist half conceals behind a cartoon or Japanese anime style. His main themes mesh with each other and revolve around us like the wheel of life, surrounded by toy soldiers, teddy bears, street urchins, rabbits, peacocks and carousel ponies. In his paintings, Arturo Correa builds bridges and channels for mass communication.


Ojos que no ven (Out of Sight, Out of Mind)

His paintings reflect social reality and reverse the objective world, as in his previous Quinta La Calle (2002), an interactive object-painting project presented as a wooden playhouse, in pure child-like style. Participating spectators can enter this playhouse and write on the white inner walls their opinions and thoughts on ever-growing poverty and the lack of solidarity in our daily lives.

The name of this playhouse is not a random one: in Venezuela, the word quinta is used to designate the homes of the upper middle class. Unique images are painted on its outer walls, as a reflection of the streets around it and their pathetic inhabitants —a pregnant, single mother carrying her baby in her arms; drugged children; beggars going through the garbage; stray cats and stray dogs; day and night. The artist tells us that these are "representations of a human odyssey, the system's outcasts, underprivileged groups that we have somehow taken for granted and who nowadays seem part of our supposedly comfortable world."

From a distance, this art object vaguely brings back memories of innocent Hansel and Gretel, who found a pleasant, colorful and attractive little house in the forest. As we approach it, it becomes impossible to miss its real meaning — on an inner wall we read this warning: "It takes a great deal of charity to make our eyes blind to poverty." Arturo Correa's work is the detonating power behind new feelings and emotions.

The sample now shown at ArtSpace Virginia Miller Galleries includes carousel ponies whose expressive eyes reflect a myriad of stories, as well as rabbits that have experienced panic and persecution. Toy soldiers are also present as a symbol of war, alongside paintings where sundry human beings display sarcastic smiles: they make us recall the many nightmares that we have barely managed to delete from our collective memory. We are witnesses to a collection of paintings that describe nostalgia, dreams, the ironies of life and the fear of growing up. These works lead us to the realization that we live surrounded by terrible realities, while we delight our eyes with the charms of innocence.

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Arturo Correa: In Search of Significance
Oct 3 - Nov 28, 2003

Inner/Outer Search

Por. Zuleiva Vivas, Curadora de Arte Latin Americano, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela

El entorno se ha vuelto denso y confuso, la busqeda de realidad debe orientarse hacia si mismo. Esta reflexion parece ser lo que moviliza la mano y el pensamiento de Arturo Correa, artista venezolano cuya carrera ha transcurrido en un ir y venir del norte de America al centro de Venezuela. Correa realizo estudios de arte en Orlando y Nueva York, vive y trabaja entre Valencia, Carabobo, Nueva York, Connecticut y Miami, aun cuando sus principales influencias pertenecen a artistas de su pais que impregnaron sin darse cuenta, su mente inquieta y nostalgica.

Posee una destreza pictorica demostrada por un dominio singular de los acrilicos, con ellos obtiene texturas, matices y transparencias sobre lienzos sin fondear, que semejan oleo. La pintura de Arturo Correa toma cuerpo al ejercer una tecnica impecable junto a los discursos que muestra a traves de los ojos de sus personajes. Son figuras tomadas de recuerdos de infancia, juguetes que se han ido transformando en fantasmas.
Hay tambien otras figuras: mensajes cifrados con ironia, piezas cargadas de cierta perversidad que el artista intenta disimular con formas propias del comic o los anime japoneses. Sus temas se mezclan y giran cual rueda de la vida entre soldados, ositos de peluche, ninos de la calle, conejos, pavo real o caballos de carrusel. Arturo Correa construye con su pintura puentes y canales de comunicacion masiva.

Ojos que no ven

Se trata de una pintura capaz de cubrirlo todo e invertir el mundo, como en el caso de su Quinta La Calle (2002), una obra instalacion participativa realizada como casita de madera al mas puro estilo infantil. Aqui el visitatnte puede entrar y dejar escrito en las blancas paredes internas, su opinion o reflexiones sobre la sobresaturacion de la miseria y nuestra insensibilidad cotidiana.

Esta casa cuyo titulo no es azaroso (en Venezuela se llama Quinta a las habitaciones de la clase media alta), presenta una iconografia peculiar, sus paredes reflejan la calle con sus desolados habitantes: la madre soltera embarazada cargando a su bebe, el borrachito, el nino huele-pega, el indigente recoge basura, los gatos y perros callejeros, el dia, la noche. El artista cuenta que estas personajes son “representaciones de una odisea humana, elementos divorciados del sistema, subgrupos a los cuales nuestros ojos se han ido acostumbrando y que hoy en dia parecen haberse insertado incluso en una supuesta comodidad”.

La obra vista desde lejos nos recuerda a Hansel y Gretel cuando perdidos en el bosque vislumbran inocentes una linda casita dulce, colorida y atractiva. Al acercarnos, es imposible pasar inadvertidos, sobre el muro interior leemos: “Cuanta limosna hace falta para no ver la miseria a los ojos”. La obra de Arturo Correa se concibe como herramienta detonante de sentimientos y emociones.

La seleccion que exhibe ArtSpace Virginia Miller Galleries presenta caballitos del carrusel que nos cuentan historias a traves de sus ojos expresivos, conejos donde puede verse el rastro de espantos y desencuentros. Tambien hay soldaditos de plomo como signos de la guerra junto a cuadros donde los humanos nos regalan sarcasticas sonrisas, son ellos quienes ofrecen remembranzas de aquellas pesadillas que tanto costo borrar de nuestra memoria. Nos encontramos frente a una pintura que describe la nostalgia, los suenos, la ironia y el miedo a ser adultos. Se trata de una obra que nos enfrenta a la enorme sospecha de estar conviviendo con lo terrible, mientras contemplamos regocijados el encanto y la inocencia.

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