Francisco en La Carraca (after Arturo Michelena’s Miranda en La Carraca, 1896) (2025)

🐄 this work sits in direct conversation with venezuelan academicism, a grand historical tradition that helped construct the visual identity of the nation. michelena’s original turns miranda into monument, its in primary school books across generations in venezuela.

✨ i’ve been interested in queering that archive, and here i focus on miranda as a cassanovan figure, politically tragic, and cosmopolitan. a man with an almost excessive scope for travel. participating in the french revolution, moving across continents, escaping imprisonment, later betrayed by bolívar, dying in cádiz before the republic was fully formed.

🍑 i limit and saturate fantastically the colour palette of the background. thinking of a present colour inspiration in the works of salman toor.

🇻🇪 the desire to bring myself closer to venezuela, to our histories, in this instance thru painting. there is a mariposan approach to this project, and the spirit of her is all over this project.