“Jaguar” depicts the title character in the midst of the Amazon jungle. The background reveals a desolated scene: the consequences and horrors that come with the illegal mining that has destroyed the Venezuelan land in recent years. The Jaguar’s appearance is embellished with symbols that allude to spirituality and political salvation. These characteristics, alongside the basket filled with bread flour and cassava, transform the animal into an entity that brings hope to the disaster around.

Diego de la Rosa

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Diego de la Rosa is a Venezuelan artist that is currently living and working in Toronto. His work explores the cultural impact of the social crisis in his native country, and relies on symbolism to explore the ideas and sentiments born from this reality. His process involves the collection of found imagery of people and places from Venezuela that are then rearranged into painted narratives full of imaginative elements, such as giants, theatrical atmosphere, and fantastical characters. The source imagery represents the perceived reality, while the painting tactics embody the values and ideas that are employed to create a reading for these circumstances. The use of allegory in his paintings provides an artistic translation of social concepts similar to the interpretative approach of an anthropological study. He uses these painted scenarios to illustrate both the cultural notions surrounding the crisis, and critical theories on frustration, resilience, spatial inhibition and the desire for power, which he employs to analyze the subject at hand. Through his work, De la Rosa creates images that universalize issues of oppression, crime and social struggle, evoking empathy in societies so distant from his own.