JORGE VELARDE'S HORROR STORIES
Casa del Barrio inaugurated the exhibition Historias de Terror, by Ecuadorian painter Jorge Velarde, curated by Rodolfo Kronfle.
The curator writes: "Although the visual impact of this new solo show by Jorge Velarde (Guayaquil, 1960) is striking and atypical in the larger context of his exhibitions, this one does not deviate from the autobiographical itinerary that has been central to his work, nor from his eagerness to explore the imaginaries that have shaped him as an individual and an artist. He also continues to incorporate resources such as humor and the use of retro languages –associated with caricature and illustration– that he has long interspersed in his work".
"In the large canvases he presents, he has decided to expand to a heroic scale some of the comic book covers he began drawing in December 2019 (Terror Stories and Strange Terror - Entomophobia were, respectively, fascicles 1 and 2) employing the narrative codes and vintage graphic styles that circulated in his childhood. In works such as Cámara de Escalofríos, Selva Prohibida or La Momia Bicéfala he takes his sustained propensity for self-portraiture (already well over 300) to increasingly imaginative expressions: the way in which that representation of Velarde's multiple self finds new outlets to continue outlining aspects of his psychology, personality, temperament and spiritual life never ceases to amaze."
Jorge Velarde was born in Guayaquil in 1960. In 1979 he completed his high school studies with a specialization in painting at the Colegio de Bellas Artes Juan José Plaza in Guayaquil, where he forged a friendship with a small group of classmates with whom he would work from then on and which would soon take the name of La Artefactoría. In 1985, once married, he travels to Madrid to study filmmaking, majoring in cinematography.
In 1987 he returned to his hometown where he still lives today. He has had 34 solo exhibitions, mostly in Guayaquil and Quito, but also in other cities such as Cuenca, Loja, Bahía de Caráquez, Manta, Bogotá, Lima and Miami. He has also participated in more than 80 group exhibitions in Guayaquil, Quito, Cuenca, Machala, Azogues, Ambato, Buenos Aires, Madrid, Lima, Oaxaca, Beijing, Bogota, Santo Domingo, Istanbul, Sao Paulo, Santiago, Caracas, Rosario and Brasilia.
Historias de terror. Exhibition by Jorge Velarde.
Until August 12.
Casa del Barrio. 200 Panama Street and Juan Montalvo. Guayaquil, Ecuador.
