Artist Roberta Ruiz writes:
“The amount of work and the breath of images that Eduardo Carrillo created were not apparent to all of us who knew him at the university. He was understated, nurturing, and easy in his demeanor. When looking at his work I “get†the outrageousness of living, while recording your thoughts and impressions in paint and being totally committed to doing it. His paintings have modesty, humor and a biting reserve.
‘Eduardo’s color comes out of his involvement with the paint. It produces a sense of light as well as time and an abundance of pattern. Color plays off color in creating context and image. He paints mythology, history, and everyday life here and in Mexico transforming it with his personal vision and craft.
“In Las Tropicanas, a painting with a complex structure, Ed creates an unexpected clash of figures embedded into their environment within his own personal mythology. It’s like the Aztecs meeting Las Vegas in LA. Pattern is everywhere. Color is acidic. The toad is central in the image, holding the space. With one limb raised, it looks unflinchingly at the viewer. There are beautiful women, with patterns all over their bodies. One blows smoke out of her mouth in the form of lines to conjure up ten skeletons formed by the same kind of lines. Another stands facing a hummingbird. An archer lies on the ground, the eyes, two white dots of paint, seer at the viewer.
“In the Flight of Sor Juana, Sor Juana is flung over the chair; the color – hot pastel. She is in ecstasy beneath the Crucifix. The shadow on the cross above the chest holds the space for Christ’s head, but instead we find his face on the chest of the crucified like a tattoo of a modern day Chicano….
“A similar humor surfaces in El Chinaco. Historically, a Chinaco was a mestizo of humble origins, a guerrelliero who fashioned a place for himself of personal independence and culture. Here in Ed’s painting, the figure in its entire splendor rides a strong steed into the sunset….
Reaching for Coatlique. In the myth of the Aztecs, Coatlique is the earth and loving mother producing and consuming everything that lives. In the painting the two figures are lying, twisting horizontally, she with a snake wrapped around her arm, reaching out. He goes for the snake. His fingers almost touch it’s head. The patterned cloth sets the space. Simple?
More of Roberta’s writings can be found in a forthcoming catalogue on Edwardo Carrillo.
