¨Friend or Foe, I Don´t Know¨ Leonardo Ricardo, 2014 |
Recently I started painting ceramic plates, huge pots and large format paintings portraying exotic faces. Faces from afar. I used a style of mine from over two decades ago that I simply called Maya.
Maya Geometrics is my own, folkloric version of cubism and it is inspired because it seems to fly-through-all-time Guatemala in my mind...from pre-Columbian era until after the Spanish invasion and right now. The indigenous people of Guatemala are a deeply spiritual, brilliant, creative and colorful peoples. A fabulous multi-cultural-ethnic group with different backgrounds, languages but yet, who all celebrate, initiate and purify life as life arrives before them (joyfully or sorrowfilled) in a passionate and similar manner.
After I lived in Guatemala a few years I noticed the atmosphere was thick with the Maya spirit, both now and from before now, and that spirit was quite ¨fealable¨ and it impacted my life and the lives of those around me. My whole of reality was impacted by the Maya.
My earliest intention was to combine every mood, surprise, shock and stunning awareness that came into me from the land of this daily mystery and magic. I wanted to paint many clammouring faces that seemed just below the surface of everyday life....faces that needed to get out. Faces that wanted to be seen (and heard?). Faces that emerged at the foot of the Fuego volcano.
Guatemala is the land of deep and sacred beliefs. Spiritual awareness, customs and costumed/masked rituals often leave me speechless and in awe of this world around me. Speechless, but with some understanding of the earliest moments of life that were born here.
There is far more to the ¨Land of the Eternal Spring¨ than could ever meet the eye...but, I will try.
Leonardo Ricardo
Sacatepequez, Guatemala
Central America
*Thanks to Jane Mason, South Africa
Maya Geometrics is my own, folkloric version of cubism and it is inspired because it seems to fly-through-all-time Guatemala in my mind...from pre-Columbian era until after the Spanish invasion and right now. The indigenous people of Guatemala are a deeply spiritual, brilliant, creative and colorful peoples. A fabulous multi-cultural-ethnic group with different backgrounds, languages but yet, who all celebrate, initiate and purify life as life arrives before them (joyfully or sorrowfilled) in a passionate and similar manner.
After I lived in Guatemala a few years I noticed the atmosphere was thick with the Maya spirit, both now and from before now, and that spirit was quite ¨fealable¨ and it impacted my life and the lives of those around me. My whole of reality was impacted by the Maya.
My earliest intention was to combine every mood, surprise, shock and stunning awareness that came into me from the land of this daily mystery and magic. I wanted to paint many clammouring faces that seemed just below the surface of everyday life....faces that needed to get out. Faces that wanted to be seen (and heard?). Faces that emerged at the foot of the Fuego volcano.
Guatemala is the land of deep and sacred beliefs. Spiritual awareness, customs and costumed/masked rituals often leave me speechless and in awe of this world around me. Speechless, but with some understanding of the earliest moments of life that were born here.
There is far more to the ¨Land of the Eternal Spring¨ than could ever meet the eye...but, I will try.
Faces painted on Totonicopan apaste, photo Elizabeth Bell Leonardo Ricardo |
Leonardo Ricardo
Sacatepequez, Guatemala
Central America
*Thanks to Jane Mason, South Africa
3 comments:
Off-topic: Len, you need to update the Eruptions blogroll (FYI, my most favorite blogroll evah! ;-) ) w/ MadPriest's new internet address---
http://saintlaika.com/course-wrong/
Done! Thanks, JCF
Really like these, Leonardo. Bravo!
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