The Desert

Innocence is Questionable
Raúl Guerrero at the California Center for the Arts

“The Desert” (triptych) – 2008, oil and collage on linen, 80 x 108 inches

At the age of thirteen my grandfather, Juan Guerrero, crossed the border between Texas and Coahuilla, a state in Northern Mexico, and entered the United States. The year was 1896, the same year that the artist Paul Gauguin was living in Tahiti where he painted, Where do we come? What are we? Where are we going? I found the journeys of these two men, who lived in such opposite places of the world (desert and tropics), full of interesting comparisons and cultural meaning. They were in fact asking the same questions.

My grandfather’s immigration in search of economic stability for his family would eventually create the circumstances for me to become an artist. In homage to him, I created “The Desert” in the large format of Gauguin’s painting. It evolved into a metaphoric work depicting my grandfather’s past journey juxtaposed with images from the present encountered in the process assimilation. These images, the flotsam and jetsam of American culture, are pages from Vanity Fair Magazine that are glued randomly on the linen surface, a scene from the Anza-Borrego Desert and a collection of classic images found in Southern California.

Innocence is Questionable, 2008, California Center for the Arts, Escondido, CA
Featuring all 2006–2007 SAN DIEGO ART PRIZE Artists
Raúl Guerrero | Yvonne Venegas
Jean Lowe | Iana Quesnell
Ernest Silva | May-ling Martinez