Raul Cerrillo

Mexico City, 1977.

I can personally say that paintig gives me a better understanding of contemporary history and of the human being. Through my work and with the help of the visual information I get from newspapers, mostly tabloids, I try to capture images about the world and how we live. I find inspiration in these images because of the great impact in their visual and narrative style. I also find disturbing characteristics in these images that worry me, because people in general do not reflect on their background or undertone, and in some cases they prefer to ignore the fact that theres a reflection of our harsh reality in them. I am interested in working with them in a literal or hyper technical sense of painting, I prefer to translate into pictorial language and completely change their common look.
I believe that through the painting of disturbing and grotesque photos I can get to seduce them and convert them into fully contemplative images, thus changing the look of what is happening in our day to day. Consequently immersing the viewer in each piece, either because of the size or the amount of pictorial information that each of them contains.
In the construction of my pieces I am interesting in letting the painting, as a...

He studied at the School of Visual Arts La Esmeralda, the Institute of Visual Arts in Puebla and took courses in painted glass art in Wheaton Village, in the United States. His solo exhibitions have gone to Mexico City, Monterrey, and Puebla. His pieces have been shown in group exhibitions in Italy, and the United States. He was awarded the Acquisition Prize in the Plastic Association of the San Pedro Garza Garca contest, the Foescap 2005-2006 scholarship in Puebla , and the Acquisition Prize for Contemporary Art in 2004, also in Puebla. He was selected for the Youth Art National Award in 2001 and 2004, and had FONCA scholarship in 2002 and 2003. He currently lives in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon.