Surreal Visions

And With What Body Do They Come:

Los Desaparacidos
(The Disappeared)

ARTIST NOTES:

This series employs combined myths to illustrate the journey to salvation and enlightenment. The title alludes to a poem by Emily Dickinson which in turn refers to the Resurrection.

Los Desaparecidos/The Disappeared is the name given to people who were considered to be political or ideological threats to military governments and who were arrested or kidnapped and then vanished without a trace. This painting is an homage to the thousands of Latin American victims in Guatemala, Chile, Argentina and El Salvador.

SYMBOLS:

A worried monkey presides from the top of a gnarled candelabra tree with eyes in the branches. An assortment of pre-Columbian figurines sit in the tree and lie in the ground. Each coffin is a small retablo (a devotional painting in Mexican folk art).

MATERIAL NOTES:

The metal used as the substrate for the painting and the attached elements (coffins, rats) was cut from old aluminum newspaper press sheets.

Dimensions: 27in x 23in

Media: Acrylic and oil on metal, metal sculptures adhered to frame.

Year: 1991