El Jardin, Guanajuato, 2014
Tzurumutaro, 2024
Villa Rica, Veracruz, 2024
Col. San Lazaro, Pátzcuaro, 2018
Del Tecolote, Guanajuato, 2014
Pichátaro, 2022
Vivero interior, Capula, 2022
El Guero, Sanabria, 2023
Mariscos, Pátzcuaro, 2018
Traditional kitchen, Las Cuevas, 2022
Early morning, Tzurumutaro, 2024
Main plaza, Tzurumutaro, 2022
PUEBLO
When I began living part-time in Pátzcuaro in 2014, I primarily photographed there in town, drawn again and again by the dense, rich visual environment. Gradually, I realized that what I was seeing was the accumulation of visual meaning left layer by layer over long periods of time, even as it was also being slowly eroded, revealing glimpses here and there of earlier layers. It seemed this process occurred not just visually or architecturally, but also from cultural and religious perspectives (a sort of real-life pentimento) and I started to get a tangible feel for why Mexico has often seemed surreal to me, and others.
All one needs to do is look at Mayan or Aztec art and architecture (or here in Michoacán, the Purhépecha) to see the origins of this aspect of Mexico. Indigenous art and religion stubbornly refused to be subsumed by the Spanish conquest, and the syncretic nature of Mexican culture today is a testament. The European surrealists were attracted by this in the 20th century, including André Breton, filmmaker Luis Buñuel, and Salvador Dali. Breton called Mexico "the surrealist place par excellence," Buñuel became a Mexican citizen, and Dali was quoted as saying he would never return to a place that was "more surreal than (his) paintings." Amongst Mexican artists, painter Frida Kahlo is perhaps the best known surrealist name, though photographers Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Graciela Iturbide are no less important.
I continued exploring the town for several years before venturing further afield, not only into the campo as mentioned above, but also into other towns and villages. While my work could not be described as surrealist in any overt sense, this aspect of Mexico lies just beneath the surface of my pictures, not unlike the way it lies there behind facades and below the surface out on the street. The longer and closer one looks, the more visible these other realities become, and living here serves as a daily reminder that what we call objective reality is nothing much more than a comforting fantasy.