Santa Fe artist Enrique Figueredo presents cultural critiques through revised accounts of history and current events. Inspired by Magical Realism, his distortions boldly imagine a new version of history.
Enrique Figueredo is a Venezuelan-American artist who emigrated from South America at a young age. He studies the origins of the “New World” and the technologies of ancient cultures of the Americas to visually amend his ancestral history. He closely follows the Venezuelan diaspora and spends most of his time trying to make sense of Latin America–U.S. relations. Figueredo is naively optimistic that he will find the connections and answers that will heal the complex Western hemisphere through his endless research.
“At the foundation of my work is a specific social message composed of elements based on memory, current events, and personal experience. In creating revised accounts, I disrupt the viewer’s perception of authenticity to generate cultural critique. I utilize iconography to address identity, labor, politics, and migration. The mixed references do not lead toward a particular resolution; instead, they point toward a bold imagination. Inspired by Magical Realism, it is imperative that history be distorted and that new characters are born.
El Regreso del Machito (The Machito Returns) and Verano en Sevilla (Summer in Seville) depict a clashing of unacquainted heroes forced to exist in a social fantasy while questioning society’s constructs. Quintessential landscapes, famous tombs, prehistoric animals, ancient architecture, and secret police simultaneously occupy a diorama-like scene attempting to comprehend and unravel Venezuela’s ongoing crisis. The woodcut Paveando en mi Cadillac antibalas (Cruising in My Bulletproof Cadillac) responds to a video posted on Twitter by Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, of an airplane graveyard at Maiquetía [Simón Bolívar] International Airport in Venezuela. In the subsequent rubbing of the woodblock, I reimagined the view, highlighting the neon ghosts and iconic buildings from Caracas’s heyday.”
Santa Fe, NM | enriquefigueredo.com
(Las Tienditas International Bridge) II, 2019, woodcut, 18 x 13 in.
