Category Archives: surrealism

Fantastic Surrealism from the South of the World Oscar Barra

Edited by Miguel Ángel Huerta Zuñiga

My work can be framed within the current of surrealism; it is figurative, fantastic and is characterized by a detailed drawing and the absence of perspective, flat volumetry.

There are an imaginary of beings and biomechanical artifacts that originate in dreams I had repeatedly as a child that generate my interest in artists. Those references are in painting, Max Ernst and Giorgio de Chirico. In literature, mainly science fiction, Ray Bradbury, Jorge Luis Borges and Jules Verne.

My work is also fueled by my interest in our weird and wonderful world and the question of the possibility of life beyond it. I do not seek to cause a change in the viewer, or refer to great questions of humanity; I simply work from a psychological mechanism and process that are essential for children and artists: curiosity and imagination– Oscar Barra

Oscar Barra was Born in Santiago in 1964, he studied Art at the University of Concepción, co-founder of Grisalla, an outstanding group of artists from the 90s and early 2000s. Mainly dedicated to painting, he has extended his creation to engraving, sculpture and the drawing. He currently resides between Concón and also maintains a workshop in Santiago.

Recent individual exhibitions
2018: “Agnostos Theos”, Casa Autónoma Gallery, Autonomous University of Chile, Santiago.
2018: “Paintings”, Galerie zone, Leiden, Holland.
2018: “Winter visit”, Joan of Arc Gallery, Concepción.
2016: “The extraordinary creatures of Oscar Barra”, Nescafé Theater of the Arts, Santiago.
2016: “Imaginary Zoobotany”, Artium Gallery, Santiago.
2015: “Summer Imaginary”, Prima Gallery, Santiago.
2014: “Autumn and rain”, Nemesio Antúnez Gallery, Metropolitan University of Sciences and Education, Santiago.
2013: “Strangers in paradise”, Blanc Gallery, Santiago.
2011: “Human Resources”, Cultural Corporation of Recoleta, Santiago.
2010: “The machinery of joy”, Trazos Gallery, Santiago.
2007: “Living Water”, Matthei Gallery, Santiago.
2002: “Beyond good and evil”, Matthei Gallery, Santiago.
1997: “The forgotten games”, Chilean Institute – North American, Concepción.
1995: “Paintings”, Tomas Andreu Gallery, Santiago.

Collective exhibitions and national competitions
2020: CHACO 2020, International Contemporary Art Fair Chile, online version due to pandemic.
2019: “Tarquinia Art”, inaugural exhibition at Galería Tarquinia, Concón.
2019: “The Wild Eye”, exhibition of Latin American surrealism, Bellavista, Santiago.
2015: “Art helps”, Casas de lo Matta; organized by Parenthesis Foundation.
2014: “Art helps”, Casas de lo Matta; organized by Parenthesis Foundation.
2013: “The art of signs”, ARTIUM Gallery, Santiago.
2011: “Values ​​from diversity”, Ralli Museum, Santiago.
2011: 3rd Version International Contemporary Art Fair Chile: CHACO 2011. Casas De Lo Matta, Santiago.
2010: 2nd Version of the International Contemporary Art Fair Chile: CHACO 2010. Casas de Lo Matta, Santiago.
2010: “60 years of the General Song”. Collective exhibition in homage to Pablo Neruda. Artium Gallery, Santiago.
2009: “Stories illustrated by Artists”, Cecilia Palma Gallery, Santiago.
2009: 1st Version of the International Contemporary Art Fair Chile: CHACO 2009. Glider Club, Santiago.
2008: “The Work: art study”, sculptures, Providencia Cultural Institute, Santiago.
2005: “Metro Valparaíso” Collection, Permanent Exhibition between the Metro Stations, Valparaíso.
2000: “Around the painting”, Parque Arauco Events Center, organized by Galería La Sala, Santiago.
1993: “Proyectarte 93”, National Museum of Fine Arts, Santiago.
1993: II Biennial of Painting “Gunther Award”, National Museum of Fine Arts, Santiago.
1990: “Territory for Art”, Pinacoteca of the University of Concepción and Municipal Hall of Los Angeles.

International collective exhibitions
2011: “The Sculpture”, Adriana Indik Gallery, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
2009: “Good things come in small packages”, Círculo Azul Art Gallery, Coyoacán, Mexico City.
2000: X International Art Fair “Arte BA”, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
2008: Jadite Gallery, New York, USA.
2008: “Afternoon without cuts”, Victoria Cultural Center; Mendoza Argentina.

Exhibitions with the GRISALLA Group
2008: “Illustrations of the nonexistent”, JHH Fine Art, Connecticut, USA.
2007: “GRISALLA – A Self-visited Promise”, Pinacoteca Universidad de Concepción.
2006: “GRISALLA – Autonomous Painting”, Matthei Art Gallery. Santiago.
2000: “GRISALLA – Contemporary Chilean Painters“, Simon Patrich Gallery,
Vancouver, Canada.
1999: “GRISALLA“, Matthei Gallery, Santiago.
1997: “Signs of a life”, Praxis Gallery, Santiago.
1992: “Journey to leisure, madness and death”, National Museum of Fine Arts, Santiago.
1991: “GRISALLA”, Pinacoteca of the University of Concepción.

Works in:
MAVI. Museum of Visual Arts of Santiago, Chile.
RALLI MUSEUM. Santiago, Chile.
RALLI MUSEUM. Punta del Este, Uruguay.
RALLI MUSEUM. Israel.
MAM. Museum of Contemporary Art of Chiloé. Chile.

The Visual Poetry of a Shamanic Cartoonist Alejandra López Riffo

Written by Miguel Ángel Huerta Zuñiga

Alejandra López Riffo is an artist whose work fuses the visual arts and poetry in a perfect way. Alejandra builds an imaginary bridge that results in the beautiful hybrid of visual poetry.

An echo very few artists achieve. Possessing a technique exquisite and clean. We are introduced into imaginary worlds where birds, figures, humans, trees make a moving pact.

Sensuality is not alien to the staging of this tremendous creator who with true mastery forges dream scenarios rarely seen in Chilean art.

Alejandra López Riffo has all the ingredients to achieve a high-flying work. I have no doubt that her extraordinary sensitivity directed fantastic beings from an outstanding and unique cosmogony

Alejandra López Riffo

Alejandra López Riffo is a Visual Artist based in Santiago de Chile.
She started her artistic career at the Escuela Experimental Artística. She studied Graphic Design at the Metropolitan Technological University. In 1998 she graduated in Visual Arts, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
She has developed her artistic work by participating in various collective exhibitions and individual projects. In 2019 she received the second place in the XII Visual Arts Contest of the

Fobeju Foundation “Body and Place” Chile. Her participation this 2021 stands out with the First Place and winner of the “II Meeting of Women in the Visual Arts” and her Individual Exhibition “Listen quietly to what my drawings say” spread in Chile, Colombia and Mexico through the Group INTERNATIONAL MUA.
She participated in the “CAMELOT” Exhibition through ESGALLERY Colombia, Call for Contemporary Latin American Art spread in Colombia, Mexico and Argentina.
She currently participates in the International Exhibition Of Surrealism.
Cairo – Saint Cirq Lapopie.

Hunter of Images and Energies the Art of Miguel Ángel Huerta Zuñiga

In 2009 I started a correspondence with Chilean painter and Surrealist Miguel Ángel Huerta Zuñiga. When I first saw his work I was surprised he was expressing a deep exploration into the animistic mind like I was. Later that year in November, Miguel invited me to join El Umbral Secreto the first Surrealist Exhibition in Latin America since 1940. Over the years we have continue to be very good friends. I wanted to share some of Miguel’s work. I also asked him a few questions that would balance his image with word.

Do you think a computer will organize our experience for us?

I don’t think so and I hope it is not so, otherwise our particularity of being part of the cosmos will have been lost

Have you experienced synchronicity?

On some occasions I have felt synchronicity, but I am not very sure that’s what it was.

What do you think the future holds for handmade art ? Do you think the image on the screen will replace the object?

I believe and hope that technology will not replace painting and sculpture because the feeling that the artist creates in talismans, in objects of power lead to another reality and that link with the cosmos will be lost.

To what extent do you think our brain will merge with a simulated or fabricated imitation of reality?

I worry that our brains will merge with faux simulated or fabricated reality. I think our relationship with the cosmos would be lost

Miguel Ángel Huerta Zuñiga, Chilean Painter

Les Mystères François Cauvin

I find inspiration and magic in François Cauvin’s works. Many of his paintings can make the viewer more open to the mysteries of nature. This begins as a desire to remember our self while dreaming.

As a native of Haiti you grew up in a family of artists, musicians and poets. Who were they and how did they inform you?

Yes. I had many artists and musicians in my family. My uncles and aunts. also my mom was a fashion and dresses maker. My sister Marie-Hélène Cauvin is a visual artist too… but first they were musicians. Major influences included composer and virtuoso pianist Ludovic Lamothe and Occide Jeanty who was a composer, trumpeter and pianist.

Le secret
Ville Imaginaire
Opossum de Martinique
Goddess Oshun
Tree of Life
Hispaniolan Trogon

Woman and nature are reoccurring themes in your work. what is it about those mysteries that inspire you?

Since I was raised by women, mother and sisters, I think it plays a role in my choice of painting them later I was initiate in the tradition of the Goddess of love.

I saw red and got free
L’Attente
Fleur de Femme
Love Goddess
Death of the Mermaid
L’Attente III

How do you approach Haitian religious symbolism? is it based on traditional Vodou or your own formula to remember the universal self? or a little of both?

I think my work is based on the Haitian Vodou tradition. Since most of my work are from dreams of the spirits, messages from them. I do have dreams of my previous lives .

Fille au fanal
Magical Twins
Trance
Papillon
Lost
Priere

How would describe the relationship you have with the universal mind, dreams and subconscious process? how do you find images to paint?

The images are from dreams most of the time. The ideas sometimes comes from my mind which hold and received them. They are from a place that I don’t know. You can receive images and ideas without knowing its happening.

Met Tet
Ogun
Jumping Mermaid
A la recherche du bonheur perdu

in your artistic interpretation what are the crossroads, twins and snake represent? is there one archetype you consider a guide?

What I can answer for sure is that the snake is my true initiator before I was an initiate in the tradition. I dreamt once about the crossroad Master. He was skinless dancing in the air.

Two Mambos
The Queen Mother, Goddess of the broken hearts/protector of the souls
This painting shows clearly, the appropriation of the old myth of Isis by the Haitian Vodou from the Catholic Church dogma.

what writers have influenced you? what other influences changed your perception of the world?

I really love the South American writers and the magic realism school. Colombian novelist, Gabriel García Márquez. Guatemalan poet, Miguel Ángel Asturias. Cuban novelist, Alejo Carpentier. Haitian writers too that include Jacques Stephen Alexis, Jacques Roumain, Laennec Hurbon, Jean Price Mars and Villard Denis. I loved reading French novelist Marguerite Yourcenar… but what really influenced me was my past in the Haitian country side and Port-au-Prince. Also what my father taught me in that time about nature and plants.

Rara King I
Toussaint Louverture
Sanite Belair, Héroïne of the Independence war of Haïti
Rara King II

Blue Prints and Sketches

Book Covers
Artrist François Cauvin lives between Montreal Canada and Haiti
Sphinx

Path of Light, Shadow of a Circle. Visions and Poems by Enrique de Santiago

Art and Poems Written by Enrique de Santiago

The scientific world wonders where the boundary between matter and antimatter begins. That is, where does the surreal begin? For this we must know the secrets expressed in the Emerald Tablet, where the borders of the vibratory spaces are not represented, since they do not exist, since what is denser can become something less dense according to the laws of the variable flows of the vibratory fields. Therefore, everything is a continuum according to what modern physics has shown, a kind of manifested logos where the elusive can be a res perceived according to the capacity of the receiver.

Gears of a quantum ship, acrylic and ink on Fabriano paper, 21 x 28 cm


For the exponential curve of the logarithmic spiral to exist, there must be a logarithm that draws it, but also a mathematical equation that designs an enormous spatial support that contains it and allows it not to disintegrate as a design. We calculate what we see, but the invisible does not enter into that equation. This is how we neglect our astral bodies.

Spectacular blindness, collage s/paper, 30 x 20 cm

FAIR DAYS
In a cold and stony hole
a flower withers hopelessly
while the world rejoices
with the monk’s tricks

Flight and Music

Perpendicular imagination looming
behind the divine muscle
that strips of its pelagic destiny
to the one that lies at the foot of its calcareous slab.
With each sun 666 errata arise
in the belly of the lunar word.

Emerged from nocturnal memory
a pristine song
embrace my origin
and illuminate my soul.

Mother earth seeks the perfume of redemption
while the man far in the abyss of him auscultates the night to gain objects
the emptiness of having
is named among the speechless faces
so then the alchemical weddings were prepared without any finding for your eyes
the leaves of the forest fall slowly
the roar of the terrestrial kiss reaches my ears
sound to be ocher dust in solar memory
end of times
and circular principle
the appointed mystery
while children are killed by hunger
to continue making “Barbies”

NUMBER LEVITATION


The ancient voice from the parting of the waters
what is above and what is below
like pale dawn of man
without the primordial exhalation
roam the surface
looking for a high dwelling
to detach from matter
the creative breath of the submerged forest under your name
with their ethereal offspring
like plumage swayed by the wind
in their forgotten northern voices
mother of desire
and of rebellion
clay healing tide
with sporadic winged notes
and tears of bears
that forget the wound in sleep.

my bone wish
penetrate the flesh of the shadows
For a right to endorphins for every citizen

Interdimensional ossuary, Ink on cut paper and acrylic on 300gm fabriano paper

Art and Poems Written by Enrique de Santiago ©

Enrique de Santiago, Born in Santiago, Chile (1961). Visual artist, poet, researcher, essayist, curator and cultural manager. He studied a Bachelor of Art at the University of Chile and at the Institute of Contemporary Art (Chile). Since 1984, he has exhibited in individual and group exhibitions, counting to his credit around more than 100 exhibitions.
He has edited five books: Fragile Transits Under the Spirals in 2012, with La Polla Literaria; Elegía a las Magas and the book essay: El Regreso de las Magas, both with Editorial Varonas. In 2018 he edited La Cúspide Uránica with editorial Xaleshem and Dharma Comunicaciones, and Travel Bitácora with Editorial Opalina Cartonera.
He has participated in various poetry anthologies, both in Chile and abroad. He has collaborated in the newspaper La Nación with articles on new media art, and in magazines such as Derrame, Escaner Cultural and Labios Menores in Chile, Brumes Blondes in Holland, Adamar from Spain, Punto Seguido from Colombia, Sonámbula from Mexico, Agulha de Brazil, Incomunidade de Portugal, Styxus de Rep. Czech, Canibaal de Valencia, Spain, Materika de Costa Rica and other printed and digital publications.

Visions Enrique de Santiago

It had to be finished yesterday, like every day in 2021, creating. Because the reason for my existence is to navigate the wonderful.
Happy today and tomorrow for all, since according to the calendar of nature, each day should be celebrated loving it intensely.

Visions
Ending centuries of moonlight dimming
a dark fire travels the walls without knowing the foolishness of its orbit,
an empty smoke escapes from her womb that is the son of the empire,
leaving a rough trail of ancient scales,
and from that place new demolitions erupt to lower their faces when winter looms,
slowly the room is emptied leaving only undamaged strings that proclaim instantaneous blues,
because she admitted flowers in her womb,
and she came down the stairs with her bare legs,
while from her shadow the absolute gesture of death loomed,
hidden and unexpected
and emitted the song of the breeze of oblivion
in order to satisfy the gesture of a star bathed in failed zodiacs,
impertinent and uncertain attempts,
that were thrown to the cosmic confines beyond certainty.

Había que terminar ayer, al igual que cada día del 2021, creando. Porque la razón de mi existencia es navegar por lo maravilloso.
Feliz hoy y mañana para todos, ya que según el calendario de la naturaleza, cada día debe celebrarse amándolo intensamente.

VISIONES
Acabando con siglos de oscurecimiento de luz lunar
un fuego oscuro recorre los muros sin saber de la necedad de su órbita,
escapa de su vientre un humo vacío que es hijo del imperio,
dejando un sendero áspero de escamas antiguas,
y desde ese lugar estallan nuevas demoliciones para bajar los rostros cuando acecha el invierno,
lentamente queda vacía la sala dejando sólo cuerdas indemnes que pregonan azules instantáneas,
porque ella admitía flores en su útero,
y bajaba las escaleras con sus piernas desnudas,
mientras desde su sombra asomaba el gesto absoluto de la muerte,
oculta e inesperada
y emitía el canto de la brisa del olvido
para así saciar el gesto de un astro bañado de zodiacos fallidos,
impertinentes e inciertas tentativas,
que fueron arrojadas a los confines cósmicos más allá de la certidumbre.

Enrique de Santiago

Born in Santiago, Chile (1961). Visual artist, poet, researcher, essayist, curator and cultural manager. He studied a Bachelor of Art at the University of Chile and at the Institute of Contemporary Art (Chile).

Since 1984, he has exhibited in individual and group exhibitions, counting to his credit around more than 100 exhibitions.


He has edited five books: Fragile Transits Under the Spirals in 2012, with La Polla Literaria; Elegía a las Magas and the book essay: El Regreso de las Magas, both with Editorial Varonas. In 2018 he edited La Cúspide Uránica with editorial Xaleshem and Dharma Comunicaciones, and Travel Bitácora with Editorial Opalina Cartonera.

He has participated in various poetry anthologies, both in Chile and abroad. He has collaborated in the newspaper La Nación with articles on new media art, and in magazines such as Derrame, Escaner Cultural and Labios Menores in Chile, Brumes Blondes in Holland, Adamar from Spain, Punto Seguido from Colombia, Sonámbula from Mexico, Agulha de Brazil, Incomunidade de Portugal, Styxus de Rep. Czech, Canibaal de Valencia, Spain, Materika de Costa Rica and other printed and digital publications.

Beyond the Bone


it is a super kind of role
rotating archetypes
where
number equals avatar
all four won once
if you want to get elemental
around the table
occurring at intervals
periodically
snap shot to
photogrammetry
a kinetic map
perception transfer
interface fidelity
contemplation points
an evidence board
but folded into
an icosahedron
edges linked by fiber optics
on invisible lines
as best they could trace
those
dice face are channels
those
dice face are mirrors
refraction may be
tubes of light
or if you prefer day stream
an almost calendar
in one lapidary being
an extraterrestrial of triangles
predeterminer and all
lets play
rotated and rolled
hyperstition is now
but also then
all ways
crossroads
a mobile hot spot
every time
is space
echolocation
our deep unknown ability
leads to where
wear leads
to dissolve dice
and sincerely know
the icosahedron remains spinning
all over time
an everlasting pattern
a rapidly occurring gem
from
the house of invention

written by Mitchell Pluto© December 11, 2021

convolutional echolocation

artificial neural network
neurons are aggregated
image input
visual cortex
layers and magic squares
number and color spaces
red, green, blue
processing example
image recognition
labeled
a set of facts
filters removing waves from particles
about that world, who was thinking the who
useful information
an algorithm
binary classifier
animal, non animal
vector of numbers on a clock
adapt parameters
template of being two points in time
self-driving car
spatiotemporal
the finding and collecting self

written by Mitchell Pluto December 2, 2021 ©


Interior Psychic Meteorology

my non representational paintings are automatic impressions from my subconscious. a sort of interior psychic meteorology.

Venus sextile Jupiter

I work on them everyday. there are no things, no pronouns, no gender, no politics, no beliefs, no morals. no 17th 18th, 19th or 20th century archetypes, no mystical ideas, no ideas about beauty or ugliness, no appropriation, no opinions.

Internet Poltergeist

it’s just a lot of yes too energy, paint, color and texture. the theme is about finding nothing. the exercise is liberating-the painting can not develop into something. I only name them when I share them, which I have been reluctant and hesitant to do. they are not made to be understood.