Monday, November 11, 2013

El Curiot, Mexican artist


Such a first name as El, ya tan tanto muy curioso. 




¡Ahí el está! 




Now you are expert on El Curiot style and you can recognize his work anywhere.

I was watching one of the CSI shows off mute long enough to catch them entering an artist's room. The man has cartoons covering all of the walls and piled on every flat surface. The woman says,

"Yes, he is working on a graphic novel." 

By that depiction of an obsessed artist I realized that is how a graphic novel would happen, as occurring naturally by the artists obsession, not by making an obsession out of producing a graphic novel. The novel would self-organize by sheer dint of  production and compulsive obsession of drawing the same figure over and over in every conceivable configuration from every angle possible, and that being okay with them. Branching out from there. 

And that is how artists such as El Curiot and Britain's Bansky make themselves known, by forcing themselves onto people's consciousness by dint of their obsession, their naturally occurring production. All. Over. the. Place. 

And that is just the start. They persist with the same thing on interior walls, on canvases, on boxes nailed to walls, on boxes made into shrines of some artistic sort spilling out to the tabletop below them dripping onto the floor, the whole wall, the whole corner, the whole section of a room, the whole place an art installation. He is that carried away. And eventually people tune in and go, 

"Can I have a little piece of that, please?" 

And the artists says,

"Sure."

And that is how artists end up represented and with studios. El Curiot appears to be all over social media on his own. 

and many more.

11 comments:

Methadras said...

He's way way way better than Banksy.

Unknown said...

I like it.

Mumpsimus said...

Or you could pop over to Juarez and pick up some of the Oaxacan wood carvings he's ripping off. Cheap, portable and just as much fun to look at.

edutcher said...

A lot of Aztec and Mayan in there.

ricpic said...

It's very, um...Mexican. Which is to say that while I, a steenkin' gringo, can appreciate the effort that went into it, it means NADA to me.

deborah said...

Interesting point, Chip, about flooding everyone's senses till they get used to it. Like Mary Engelbreight or Debbie Mumm

The last panel is like Dr. Seuss meets Care Bears where the wild things are. He's skillful, but I'm not loving it. And the color palette doesn't speak to me. Do you like it, Chip?

(Those are so pretty, Mumps.)

deborah said...

But I think it's unfair to say El (hee) is ripping of the other artwork...it's a Mexican heritage art, for Pete's sake.

bagoh20 said...

It looks mostly new to me. Sure it's Mexican flavored, but new to my eye. I do like it. I like that Mexican palette, but most stuff is too familiar looking. This isn't to me.

Chip Ahoy said...

The last one is 3rd of a series showing him doing it on the wall. All you see is his back in the first two of the series. I think it spells ZOO. And two different imaginative animals. Almost maybe perhaps could be he got permission or even paid by the Zoo, could be. I like all of them. Some seem overly weirdly complex. One looks like samurai others looks like huge machines with animal paws and for finishing touch people around like fleas.

The Dude said...

Ron Hubbard has the same first name.

Andy, in Weeds, does too.

deborah said...

I looked again at his Flickr page. Don't care for it that much, though I can appreciate his talent...maybe because it seems like message art? Or he's trying too hard to be mysterious or cutting edge?

(So does Al Bundy. Oh, wait.)