Exhibition -

Oscar Camilo de las Flores draws chaotic scenes of man in combat with humanity's internal and external struggles against the perpetual angst of existence. Meg Linton, Director of Otis Ben Maltz Gallery, delves into the fray.

The Themes of Gluttony, corruption, and insanity caused by unchecked power are pervasive in the work of Oscar de las Flores. The powerful are often portrayed as mutated or hybrid monsters, like satyrs, and the oppressed figures are often naked, deformed, or defiled. The scars run deep and the expressions are extreme. His characters grin, they do not smile, and they instill uneasiness in their laughter. And yet, there is a beauty and liveliness in these tightly-rendered monochromatic works on paper, as tortured creatures appear and disappear into architectural or rural backgrounds similar to the work of New York City-based artist Yun-Fei Ji.
The etching, The Insane Fleeing the Earth (2005) depicts a mass of exodus similar to biblical episodes of exile in paintings by artists like Peter Bruegel The Elder or Albrecht Altdorfer, Oscar used portraits of people he has seen in daily life as sources for the clinically insane represented in the print. These "crazies" are fleeing the earth in a great panic, and are more afraid of the cabinet of deranged leaders who are plunging this planet into a self-proclaimed and generated apocalypse than of leaping into the unknown. They escape a world in which leaders discount the consequences or their actions, another important overarching theme to this artist.

When he was a young child, Oscar's grandmother revealed the magic of drawing when she showed him how to make a dove from the number "2" by looking at it from a different angle. He's been drawing ever since and believes that pen to paper is the most direct medium in art. As Oscar shared, "I like working with pen on paper, because it allows for few mistakes, every gesture and reaction is recorded. I love its crisp and clean nature and its historical look". Generally he does not plan the drawings. He might have a few ideas for a theme or an allegory in mind, and may sketch our a couple directional lines, but tries to let the narrative develop naturally, by allowing each character to determine the next character, structure or symbol.
Like many artists featured in Juxtapoz, Oscar admires the work of European painters like Goya, El Greco, Caravaggio, Rubens, and Rembrandt for their eloquence, grandiose perspectives, and technical mastery of the human figure. Oscar is fascinated by the design of the human body and at one point considered becoming an anatomist. Other interests and desires steered him away from hard science, but not before his mastery of the human form became evident. The talent and skill give him the authority and confidence to "distort the body to make it more prominent and expressive, to use the body as a visual language and the flesh as a sculptural material to articulate emotion.
Being an artist is a new occupation in Oscar's family history. "There has never been an artist in the family, in fact, art seems to be the most alien concept to my family of coffee growers, technicians, engineers, carpenters…Art was never part of our home life". Even though there was no art in his house, Oscar's father encouraged him to make art; he showcased little Oscar as "the drawing son" by proudly sharing his son's humorously vicious caricatures of his friends-similar to the contorted faces and creatures of his current work-with others.

Born in Santa Sna, El Salvador in the 1970s at the beginning of the country's bitter Civil War, Oscar felt the division of battle early in his youth: "I got a bit of a feel for the fear and frustration that permeated the society even as a small child. I lived a couple of years in Acajutla, the main port in the county, and had a taste of port life and its crazy characters. My family decided to move to Guadalajara, Mexico, where we had family and friends. I spent the six and (a) half years falling in love with Mexican culture, and its appreciation for art and its pride for history." This "love" turned into a decision to be an artist when he saw Jose Clemente Orzoco's murals on a school fieldtrip. He knew in that moment that he wanted "to feel and see the world like that man had, especially having come form a war zone. I felt connected to Orozoco's plight for humanity".
This early romance with Mexico was cut short when the family decided to move to Toronto, Canada. Oscar spent his teen years trying to acclimatize himself to the strange, frosty wet weather and icy cultural mores of the North. It was in this landscape that Oscar received the bulk of his art education, graduating with honors from the Ontario College of Art and Design with emphasis on printmaking. While in high school, he studied at CW Jeffery's Collegiate Institute and took an art correspondence course with the Barcelona Art School in El Salvador. He has won dozens of awards from the Ontario Council for the Arts, and has participated in residencies or studio programs in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Spain, and several in the United States, including Yaddo and the McDowell Colony for Artists.

In addition to drawing, Oscar also paints and sculpts, and has worked with ceramics. To pay the rent, he has even worked as a freelance illustrator, silkscreen printer, and cartoonist. However, he quickly found out that working within the limitations of his clients' imaginations did not suit him. In his free time, Oscar founded La Trinchera (now called LCCA or the Latino Canadian Cultural Association), an ongoing art collective dedicated to producing and promoting the work of Latino artists in Canada by organizing art events and exhibitions throughout Toronto.

Most recently, Oscar splits his time between Canada and Mexico and is no longer involved with the LCCA. He is now working with Demian Flores to establish an alternative international residency program in Oaxaca, called La Curtiduria, that will open in the spring of 2007 in a former leather-tanning shop. To have meaningful exchanges with the immediate community, he hopes to create a studio environment where artists can pass through this historic and multicultural region. While building out the space, they have already hosted a few events, like a workshop with legendary performance artist and director of La Pocha Nostra, Guillermo Gomez-Pena. Once the residency is fully operational, there will be up to five international artist working at one time in any media of their choosing, with the core mission to facilitate exchanges between local artists and residents.
Oscar is thrilled to return to the culture of his early childhood from which his family was forced to flee because of economic hardship. As he put it, "The harsh reality of the people left behind and without possibilities of progressing or ameliorating their condition. This harsh reality reveals a powerful and cruel truth that touches anybody with a sense of compassion and empathy. I would like the rest of the world to understand these aggravating needs and to realize that many amends would have to be made in order to improve and heal these societies from the corruption of their leaders and the lack of education. As an artist, I want to witness these aspects of society and to be able to express honestly what I see and feel. I cherish this sense of freedom of expression.

To obtain the art of Oscar de las Flores, contact the gallery at info@katharinemulherin.com
Juxtapoz Magazine, Fall 2006 Issue #70