New Image Art is pleased to present a solo exhibition, “Complejo de Cristo y Vampiros" with Coachella based painter Carlos Ramirez. This will be Carlos' first solo exhibition outside his collaborative involvement in the artistic duo, The Date Farmers and will feature a series of new mixed media paintings and found object sculpture.
Carlos' works are layered reflections of a polymorphous identity; foreign yet familiar perspectives existing in a liminal reality between cultures, collecting ephemera and detritus, and combining it into playful assemblage pieces. Ramirez’s work often speaks of the inequalities within Mexican American communities and often champions the common man as underdog.
His work is tremendously resourceful, scavenging for creative materials within various desert locales. The work is replete with layers and textures intertwined with the political while being disguised as popular. Works include a combination of house paint,, sparkly stickers, handwritten bilingual text, rusted bottle caps, discarded packaging, and an iconic stylized use of acrylic paint with deeply layered figurative workings. Snakes, spiders, scorpions, and other bits of nature from his hometown appear mixed in with Catholic symbolism, aliens, perceived gang members, pop-culture references, and commercial imagery, giving brand logos and religious icons the same attention and placement. Carlos' paintings continue to evolve becoming denser and more meaningful while remaining alluring and magical.
