FEDERICO CORREA

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Artist Federico Correa “produces paintings that are inscribed within the great Spanish traditions of Goya and Roman Catholic sensibility”…with “vivid, yet ambivalent images of either the carnivalesque or morbid, good or evil, strik(ing) a universal chord while at the same time testifying to the artist’s Latino cultural heritage”. As stated in the book Images of Ambiente by author and art historian Rudi C. Bleys, Ph. D.

Correa’s “universal chords” are visually explored through dramatic sweeps of paint, texture and color that depict both unique, highly personal symbols and long established Catholic iconography. The narrative is as densely layered as a medieval altarpiece, in which a seemingly simple shape, color or object signifies a complex philosophical or religious concept. For example, Correa’s wide-eyed birds symbolize the witness, the watcher, and “God’s eye upon the sparrow” as He observes human folly and frailties. (Three Houses on Fourth Street) In some paintings the generic birds are replaced by the flamboyant rooster, a reference to the treachery of personal and family relationships and also the Biblical account of Peter the night before Jesus was led before Pilate. Peter denied knowing Jesus “And immediately, while he yet spake, the cock crew”. (St. Luke, Chapter 23, v. 60). (Soutine’s Coq)

Other long established Catholic symbols include the disembodied hands, arms of God reaching down from heaven (Assumption, the August 15 Catholic celebration of the ascent to Heaven of the Virgin’s body and soul). Skeletons have long been the universal symbol of death and transition. Correa’s cheerfully rattling bones are clearly connected with the Mexican Dia de los Muertos celebration of papier mache and sugar skeletons in which death is mocked and consumed. Dogs, connected in Catholic symbolism to St. Roche, the protector of plague victims, also appear as silent, non-judgmental watchers. (Arroyo Seco) The color blue is a centuries old reference to the Virgin, while the white of purity is referenced in a series of bride images (Castration; Ripe) and the sleeping child in (Crowded Bed).

Correa’s paintings also reference specific, complex, and often difficult episodes of his personal and family history…events that are encapsulated into highly personal visual symbols. Piles of rocks are a reminder of childhood adventures along the bed of the Salinas River (Parched, Thirsty, and the Moon ) and the family’s home on the side of a dirt road. (Noche on Fifth Street; Eres Tu/It is You) Fences - as a way to both protect and confine - are a frequent motif in Correa’s work (A Broken Horse Named Submission; Greenfield), as are references to an abusive parent. (He’s a Good Worker; Hair Brush, Wrong Hand) The “dark mother” theme is also explored in Singing Praises of Llorona , a frightening Mexican folk myth about the menacing, howling mother who throws her children into a river, and still cries out in vengeance with the voice of the wind. The universal themes of jealousy and envy are explored (Necklace of a Thousand Glances) while a high voltage sexuality is ever present in the majority of Correa’s paintings. (Dance and Muse)

The cultural heritage of Federico Ernesto Pablo Macias Correa shapes his visual narrative as a “philosophical investigation of human existence.” (Images of Ambiente, Rudi C. Bleys) The artist’s grandparents were from Northern Mexico. His parents lived in California. Federico (b. 1945) is the third of seven children. He grew up in Soledad, a farming community in California’s Salinas Valley. Norfolk was home from 1983 to 2003. He currently lives in San Miguel de Allende in central Mexico.

Gina Franco, a poet, was inspired by Federico’s painting, Death of A Butterfly. The following is the concluding stanza of Ms Franco’s poem, titled Butterfly Death.

BUTTERFLY, DEATH

Gina Franco (Concluding stanza)

I cross, I migrate. The blaze

by night is hysterical: red,

black: Correa paints his Death

of a Butterfly in the light

of my rooms. He paints

my fixtures lined with dust, skin,

paint chips, insect parts

and insect wholes, and I catch

sight of the mouth – I burnt

among them, and consume them

that were in the uttermost parts –

the mouth, a very great plague,

and in my mouth: vacuum.

Ann Dearsley-Vernon

Director of Education, Emeritus (retired)

Chrysler Museum of Art

September, 2006