AUSTRALIAN ARTIST - September 1994


ERNESTO ARRISUEÑO'S SYMBOLIC REALISM

The boat in Ernesto Arrisueño's demonstration painting represents a character like himself- a trailer, searching for inspiration, searching for magic.

By Nadine Wagner

Ernesto Arrisueño is a young, sensitive, romantic with an imagination that takes him into a world of sharp but dreamy exaggeration. When he came to Australia four years ago, Ernesto left behind him a life of violence and corruption. The intensity and poverty of Peru had caused him to hide in the world of his imagination and escape the harshness and volatility of what he saw around him. As the political instability of Peru grew more severe, Ernesto became increasingly unsure of his future as an artist, even though he was becoming well known by collectors. In Australia he now enjoys political security and an environment where he knows he can paint without fear.

Ernesto studied drawing at the Institute Art Centre, then gained a Scholarship of Visual Arts at Brazilian Studies Center in 1977. He went on to complete a Bachelor of Architecture at the University Ricardo Palma, Lima Peru from 1977-1983. His architectural training has given Ernesto the academic ability to paint realistically exactly what he sees and then his imagination changes the setting of the image into one of unusual reality, and even unreality.

His motivation is usually spontaneous. He sees an object, a scene, a landscape, still life, people or flowers and then imagines that he has become that object and he, as that object, visualizes and expresses the things around him. He recreates the object in perfect representation and then plays with this image and exposes it to a completely ironical or absurd situation. Many of the objects have been a part of his life. They usually have a special meaning for him; for instance the South American dry mountainous landscape, or flowers that remind him of a beautiful scent, or sometimes functional items like tables, drawers, the small objects inside the drawers or jugs, pots of water and exotic fruits and foods, as Ernesto has an interest in cooking. However, boats are his favourite subjects. He sees them as a symbol of life, survival and a statement of history.

In the demonstration painting (above) Ernesto used the contrasts of the boat, the tranquil water and the harshness of the concrete wall as an overstatement, as a symbol, a reaction. The boat is not going anywhere, it is just waiting. There are many contrast in this painting- what is the boat doing there? There are no other boats in the water so we have a sense of isolation and loneliness as well. The boat looks very well used, perhaps even a century old, it seems quite knocked about and obviously has had its own life and many adventures and stories, if only it could tell them. Perhaps Ernesto is telling the tales of the boat in his painting.

In fact, Ernesto see the boat as a vessel searching for the magic of real life. This search means a lot to Ernesto- the boat is the representation of a character like himself- a traveler, searching for inspiration. He sees something of his personality in this boat- quiet, reserved, and raveling through different lands. This is how Ernesto intellectualizes the them of this painting.

Another contrast is that the boat is placed on calm water that covers most of the canvas. This gives the sensation of peacefulness, exaggerated by the large expanse of tranquil water on which the boat is resting. The light on the water and on the boat is very bright, again accentuating the peacefulness of the scene. Suddenly, below the sunlit boat is a dark reflection on the water, immediately beneath the boat. The reflection is of the dark concrete wall. The ground on the shore in front of the boat is very cold, muddy and scattered with hard rocks.

The front edge of the bow of the boat is the climax of the painting. This is where the point of contrast is exaggerated the most. The point where strong light meets deep shadow, where soft meet hard, warm meets cold and where tranquility meets trouble.

When looking at this painting the viewer is taken from the peaceful water though progressively more intense sensations, ending at the top of the painting, with the big dark wall and drain in the upper left on the canvas. The coldness and darkness slowly increases not only in tone and colour but in meaning as well.

The boat and the water are relaxing and inviting while the wall and drain are the complete opposite. These contrast are the intentional theme of this painting.

Sometimes, Ernesto used the contrast theme in other ways, for example, he may set the boat onto a dry desert landscape devoid of water, making the setting quite absurd or surrealistic. Sometimes the boat is placed in a pool with very little water and is full of tiny pebbles and rusty cans. However, his motivation always remains the same- an ironic or contradictory situation, and a message of expression of peace.