Humour isn't something that often slips onto canvas. It's as if laughter had never been invited to become a target for the brushes. Ricardo Cruz Fuentes (Mexico City, 1982) turns that scenario around and pulls off a clever body of work pitched almost entirely in the territory of the belly laugh, brimming with sarcastic, straightforward humour.
The thing is, the Mexican painter finds in everyday life the complicity he needs to connect with the viewer. Who will surely recognise himself in one of the scenes his paintings depict. Because, far from picking subjects that aim at deep reflection or call for closer analysis, he offers up a relaxed, ordinary reality. Familiar situations that most of his audience warms to straight away.
He does it with a fresh, cheeky language. One that reaches for the gestural expressiveness of comics and, at the same time, releases the movement held back by the leads of his stories. Sorted out against eye-catching colour backgrounds, over which he pours complementary patches that leave a lively, entertaining visual impression. What stands out extraordinarily in his compositions is the quality of his drawing, along with the loose brushwork and the chromatic contrast through which he arrives at impressionist qualities.
His interest in art goes back to childhood, and it was in 2007 that he painted his first oil. Everything he has learned, before and since, he has learned on his own. That's why the taste for exploring is built into his creative process. Ricardo Cruz Fuentes doesn't hesitate to dig around and invent new methods that let him carry his conceptual originality onto the body of the canvas. Which is how he has come to give humour material form with his own hands, applying the paint straight from his fingers.
Find out more about Ricardo Cruz Fuentes here!
Comments (0)
Log in to leave your comment. Log in