Statement provided by the Artist
Carlos Rosales-Silva (He /Him) was born on the border of the United States and Mexico in El Paso, Texas. His studio practice considers the vernacular culture in the American Southwest, the western canon of art history, and the political and cultural connections and disparities between them. Carlos has exhibited throughout Texas, and in Mexico City, New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Kansas City. He has been an artist in residence at Abrons Art Center in New York, NY, Residency Unlimited in New York, NY (2020), Artpace in San Antonio, Texas (2018) and at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, NY (2017). Recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition at Ruiz Healy Art in New York, NY, and group shows at the Latinx Project at NYU, Texas Tech University, Beverlys in New York, Ny and Left Field Gallery in Los Osos, CA. Carlos graduated from the School of Visual Arts with a Masters in Fine Arts. He currently lives and works in New York, NY.
“I often travel to the sites where I learned how to see relationships of color, shape, and space. Most often these travels take me to the American Southwest and Mexico where I grew up. I believe the architecture, landscapes, and vernacular cultures of these places are not only beautiful, but unique because they reveal the complex visual histories of colonization that are severely under-recognized in Western Art History. These visual histories have been hugely influential in the development of Western art, design, and architecture. There would be no modernism without the cultural work of indigenous peoples and there would be no modern world without the labor, wealth, and life siphoned from North America by colonizers. While this concept is challenging to represent in modular paintings, especially abstract paintings, a practice of citation is not difficult. My work runs parallel to the established art historical canon; deeply indebted to the artists, artisans, and craftspeople of the American Southwest and Mexico as much as it is to any established and codified art historical canon.
My works host a vernacular formal language that can be found in and on the brightly colored homes and businesses of the Southwestern United States and Mexico. Both places hold a unique language of color and a singular execution of Modernist architecture. I am obsessive about texture and color because I grew up around textured walls that were often painted with murals or bright colors. These relationships are important in my work, and carry not only formal meaning, but contextual cultural meaning.”
The cover art is part of a diptych called Gallo.
Gallo 1 and 2 19×13” each Acrylic paint, sand, and acrylic plastic on custom panel
2021
