Miami-based Gonzalo Fuenmayor’s precise drawings continually explore themes of cultural hybridity and identity politics. His recent body of work examines ideas of dislocation and exoticism through a series of large-scale charcoal and pastel drawings. Cross-cultural and hybrid identities are explored through obvious and clichéd aspects of tropical culture together with Rococo and Victorian style elements. The struggle to imagine cultural specificity is inherent in the intersection of extravagant and decadent 17th and 18th century imagery together with exuberant tropical landscapes. Different strategies are employed in order to subordinate the contradictory into a delicate and imaginative order, with the aim of questioning notions of place and belonging. As the past, the present, the exotic and the familiar collide, absurd and fantastic panoramas arise.
(Excerpt and image above selected from grant proposal. Artwork is copyright of the artist.)