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Time and time again, no matter what era we are talking about, wars always destroy worlds, those of those who experience them firsthand. Artists throughout time have shown the horrors of these, such is the case of Picasso with Guernica, a work that impacted the Mexican artist, Fernando. Escartiz, and who, with small modifications to the original work, has taken Pablo's pieces to 3D, in an exhibition that brings the viewer closer to reflecting on current war conflicts.
With pieces almost 14 feet long and 7 feet high, just to mention a couple of them, Escartiz sought to reflect the impact he had when facing the work of Pablo Picasso, which lives in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía , in Madrid, Spain, a country where he traveled in January to seek inspiration.
The Escartiz exhibition, with 8 monumental pieces, is at the Art Kiosk of Redwood City (2208 Broadway), from July 14 to 21, presented by Redwood City Improvement Association and Fung Collaboratives.
This is the third time that Fernando presents his art in this large space in the city, which vibrantly embraces what the artist has exposed, who on this occasion makes a deep reflection on the war combat worldwide.
?In January of this year I traveled to Madrid and saw Guernica, I had already seen it on other occasions, but this time the blow was stronger. It is a very impressive painting, but this time, seeing the painting you can't stop thinking about the conflicts that currently exist; So the painting is still very contemporary, we still have those types of horrors that wars generate?, he told Península 360 Press exclusively.
At that moment, he said, the idea of making Guernica was proposed, but in 3D, "because, what I like is sculpture and shapes, apart from the fact that I have always been very attracted to Picasso's work."
And the fact is that the exhibition is practically Guernica: the human and animal figures, but with small updates, thinking about current times.
In total there are nine pieces: the horse, a warrior, a dove, the mother with the dead child, a kneeling woman, the house on fire, the eye, and the woman with the lamp.
For Fernando, all the pieces "fit together" differently, however, there are a couple that ?move you? in a particular way: ?the house on fire? and ?the mother with the dead child?, the first ?impressed me because there we have the loss of homes which is something that, apart from pain, trauma and death, represents all the loss of your belongings; So, there are many people who lose their homes and there is no longer any certainty as to whether they can return?
The second, he said, "is like Michelangelo's Pietà, that piece for me is the one that hit me the most, I think if we take it in today's time, immediately with that piece I imagined Gaza, the dead that the war brings, I think that half of the dead are children, so I immediately linked that piece to Gaza?
In addition to this, Escartiz added a detail, as he added a projectile. And, he recalled, the Republican Nikki Haley was photographed last May, writing on a projectile a message that said “end them”, a fact that unleashed the indignation of multiple sectors of American society that oppose the Israeli offensive. and the support of the American Union for the war that has caused thousands of deaths, half of them women and children.
However, ?the house on fire? He is not indifferent, "I thought of the war in Ukraine and it involves symbols that are extra to the painting, in this piece I painted something like a neck hanging on the person who appears, it is a coat of arms of Ukraine."
Among the other updates are that of "The Eye", in the original piece there is a focus, which Escartiz changed for the lens of a camera, recognizing the work of journalists in the war, as well as the importance of the immediacy of the people who use technology and the cameras on their phones to give voice to the events that happen all the time.
The piece that is outside the enclosure lights up, and represents light: like the demonstrations by United States students for everything that is happening in Gaza: "they shed light on everything that is happening in the conflict."
In the case of the Horse, it is on a broken watermelon, in the original piece it is on the dead warrior, but the watermelon is another symbol of Gaza; "The horse is an animal that you can tame and do anything with, it represents power and fascism.
The Warrior has a broken sword and a flower in the original, in Fernando's sample the flower was changed to a sunflower as another symbol of Ukraine.
Fernando worked with three materials especially for this sample, wood, Styrofoam and a cement coating, which allowed him to obtain the desired texture, one that showed strength, which is why the granularity of the pieces can be seen.
Fernando Escartiz was born in Mexico City and from a very young age he began to feel a passion for the arts. In 2000, he became an assistant to Enrique Miralda, one of the most recognized sculptors in Mexico.
Although Escartiz grew up as a self-taught artist, Miralda taught him new and complex sculpture techniques that Fernando added to his own style.
However, Escartiz was also strongly influenced by the Mexican sculptor Fernando Pereznieto, a good friend who died in 2000.
Escartiz's inspiration often comes from his obsession with travel, as well as his deep observation of the world around him. The artist says that traveling presents the wonderful possibilities of encountering new textures, colors, shapes and feelings, and elements that are then mixed to bring his sculptures or paintings to life.
Escartiz's first large-scale commission came when the San Francisco Symphony Hall asked him to build an arch over its main staircase to welcome its audience for the Day of the Dead Community Concert in 2010. Since then, he has completed many commissioned projects, including a large 14-foot-tall skeleton that was displayed at the Oakland Museum in 2017.
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