Offering to Xochiquetzal Print

b.1962
Mississippi Delta Region of the United States
Trained from an early age in art and dance. Lived in New York City for awhile studying dance and performing as well as teaching. Returned home to obtain my BS in Psychology. After university education went on to obtain pilots licenses and fly professionally for 15 years. Past 9 years have been dedicated to my painting.

Charl Agiza
Artist Statement

For me art is an act of continuous re-exploration. Just as in dance I once drew on muscle memory, in painting I work with the rhythms of sight. In each body of work I repeatedly revisit a concept or place, interacting with it and re-interpreting it until I apprehend at a deeper level what I need to know. During the process of painting, I integrate these layers of knowing with my emotional responses and visual rhythms to create choreography on canvas. My ultimate goal is to transport the viewer to my layers of experience, both conscious and unconscious, so that together we enter the universal mystery of life.

In my latest body of abstract expressionist paintings I am exploring my intuitive response to the floating gardens of Xochimilco in Mexico City. The canals and gardens are remains of a system of agriculture created by the Aztecs when they designed the city of Tenochtitlan. The contrast of sacrifice and beauty in this ancient tradition so grip my imagination that at times it appears as if the two have come together, with the flowers beautifully bleeding. While the brilliant color of Mexico always seduces me, the Aztec concept of human sacrifice as debt repayment for the gods sacrifices disturbs my Western sensibilities. My goal is to convey those feelings-the bleeding and the beauty-in this work.