Letters From Leonora Painting

CARLOS MADRIZ - PAINTER - PRINTMAKER (b. 1972 CARACAS – VENEZUELA) Born and brought up in Caracas, in the mid-80's Carlos started experimenting with drawing, etching, silk-screen printing, design, painting and Street Art. It was at this time that he developed the skills and techniques needed to handle the 'X-Acto' blades that became his constant companion for creating stencils, a defining characteristic of his artwork. He began producing small and medium size prints, small, medium and large paintings, and then murals. In the early 90's, Carlos began studying at Caracas Advanced School of Arts and at the same time became involved in a number of projects born out of the local punk rock scene, including the design and creation of fanzines and posters and band merchandising activities such as designing and printing tee-shirts. In the mid-90's he moved to San Francisco, California, where he completed his studies in painting and printmaking and took part in various collective mural projects, taught workshops and exhibited his artwork in a number of group shows in spaces such as Balazo Mission Badlands Gallery, Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (MCCLA), Atelier Golgotha, SoMa Gallery and City Arts SF. Then in 2000 he moved to London. Here he worked teaching art workshops for young people, painting murals and showing his work at exhibitions in socially-committed cultural centers in Brixton, a neighborhood in south London. In 2002 he moved to Lecrin Valley in the province of Granada, southern Spain, where he lives and works today. The inspiration for Carlos' work comes from the Latino American popular culture in which he grew up and from the rebellious, non-conformist energy which surrounded him at the beginning of his career. These influences are still present in his work, spiced up with a touch of biting, sometimes hard-hitting, humor. Carlos does not consider himself so much an artist as a maker of images, free from pretensions and power trips, and this makes his work accessible to a wide audience.