Alchemy at Anapra Painting

alchemy at anapra mixed media on ph neutral cardboard 22.5in x 17.5in gil corral 2008 Anapra is a cardboard community at the base of the Asarco smelter and on the Rio Grande, Ciudad Juarez. Juaraz and El Paso make one of the largest border population concentrations on the planet. ............................................................... a piece from the collection: El Paso : The Pass the pass from here to there exhibited at the edra ny gallery in the chelsea art district, nyc, june 2008. this painting is approximately three inches in width, ready to hang. please view the artist statement here: http://www.gilcorral.com/el-paso-the-pass-2008 EL PASO / THE PASS reflection on and revisited 2016 This is an older body of work that is an exploration of borders, lines drawn in the sand and the foggy view of "us" and “them." This topic is so vast and complex, a few words written here seems almost futile, but here goes a finger tip poke at the gargantuan vapor. It is a recollection of thoughts and images growing up in a Southwestern border town. I was born in the United States but my cultural heritage/DNA/tribe/cultural influence spans a geography that predates the border. I happened to be borne out of the womb a few miles on this side of the border rather than on that side of the border. Reflecting on this happenstance is a mind bending abstraction. I like my country, and I am grateful for plopping out in this particular spot on this vey large planet. Of course I don't know any other experience, but I do feel fortunate to have been born in this country where most make the effort as a people to be free and just and good. We have declarations, charters, articles, laws and great documents written as testament to what we as a country represent. I particularly love the poem, "The New Colossus" inscribed on the plaque of the pedestal where the Statue of Liberty stands. It partially reads: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" Back to the impetus for this body of work. I was moved to paint these images after the mass immigration raid in New Bedford Mass, 2007. It was a terrible, sloppy event. Families were swiftly torn apart, children's parents never returned home from work one day....oh well. Like so many other stories, this one was quickly swept under the rug. So that is that. Almost ten years later, there is a larger looming threat facing our Nation with the upcoming election. There will be so much more of this and that. There are manipulative words used to sell divisiveness such as: softening, humane, pivot - as though the citizenry easily buys into the fickleness of the definition of a spewed word rather than the display of actual behavior. There is so much made of us and them -- and on some level, especially egoic, I suppose there is. There is no utopia or ideal, only different interpretations of what that shining city upon the hill looks like - this leading to different means to a fictitious end. Strive on. So much talk about this "wall" to keep "them” out. Keep "that" out. El Cucuy is taking our jobs, raping our women, just making our lives miserable. Once "we" keep "them" out, "we" will be great again, all fixed. A beautiful gated community! I am not a fearful citizen living in this country, I am not afraid. I am more recently, however, concerned. Although aware of the complexity, I am not fearful of "them" (out there), but am growing in concern about what it could be like to be Walled In with a hateful, privileged, vocal minority that somehow garnered power between these four lines. and other images here: http://www.gilcorral.com/elpasothepass/

Painting:Oil on Cardboard

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:22.5 W x 15.5 H x 3 D in

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