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Demetrio Garcia Aguilar |
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Josefina Aguilar's son, Demetrio Garcia Aguilar, has taken the clay art form he learned from his mother and carried it to a whole new level in folk art. His work is richly colored, exquisitely-detailed, and strongly masculine in style. Combining his families' folk art tradition with his own technique of combining paint with clay to achieve the texture that gives his figures such complexity, Demetrio creates fantastic handcrafted muñecas with personal interpretations of religious, cultural and family themes. Today in his early 40's, Demetrio is a respected artist in his own right, and he frequently travels to the United States to work with schools, museums, and galleries. Here, Demetrio's figures are from the Comparsa: a carnival-like procession celebrated in Oaxaca during the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) festivities. Although not a traditional Day of the Dead event, the Comparsa has emerged due to the mingling of cultures over time. In this Halloween-like event, you will often see children running around in masks asking passerbys for candy, small toys, or money. The Comparsa, or procession, features fully-costumed performers, or 'tricksters', and those costumed with the festival's most important symbol, the skull, which probably comes from the Aztec god of death, Mictlantecutli, who was depicted with a skull-like face on many artifacts. Now, however, it is a symbol to celebrate death and the dearly departed. |
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El Interior |
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