Chapu Cera

In Latin America, the word "chapucera" is a pejorative term that refers to something done in a crude, coarse or barbaric manner, as is the word "godo", the word from which comes "gothic", the style on which my artwork is based.

In the European Gothic period, the miniature or book illustration was a substantial part of the pictorial avant-garde of the time. In the Caribbean, due to the late arrival of these styles, such art became a sediment that is known as colonial art, which had as its objective the cultural teaching of European ways of life, mainly religion. This was manifested to a lesser extent in paintings or illustrations that represented everyday situations, always wrapped by that religious mantle, of life in the colonies. My work attempts to rescue, to a certain extent, the chronicling value of this type of art.

For more than two years I have been collecting testimonies of people involved in criminal acts without transcendence, beyond some legal sanctions: thefts, fights, etc. Acts on a small scale, inconsequential to a certain extent. These small stories, which I see as miniatures within the social context, are not circumscribed to a particular social group. Nor does their representation have a costumbrist or markedly political nuance. My job, in addition to transcribing and editing the testimonies, is to illustrate the facts by distorting them to the point of almost making them disappear. My long-term goal is to create a kind of book project where all the texts and their representations can be accessed. A sort of digital gallery.