A entertaining reality: Ozzie Juarez is a former scenic painter “specializing in physical simulation at Disneyland.” As substantially as this is an exciting element of the artist’s development and job, it is really also a intriguing and crucial to comprehension Hollywood as both a literal and figurative backdrop to the art entire world in LA and building methods of looking at the world by way of a specific lens. The story goes that “Juarez entertained himself on the job by considering the colonial histories of American animation and by observing how shared activities are constructed—the perfect parallel to Juarez’s ongoing research into surviving and ruined Mexica (Aztec) society.”
The consequence is that Juarez has produced a physique of get the job done, in particular Por Debajo, on perspective new at Ochi in LA, that has hints of his experienced previous but feels like a new interpretation of layering art heritage with a present-day aesthetic. Rather of the sheen of Disneyland and the pre-concocted, perfected sets of the movie sector, Juarez has taken apinted camper shells, storefront awnings, and development products and painted clean styles that are aspect of his fluorescent Mexica aesthetic. There is a duality in the perform that is equally element of the artist’s lifetime as a indigenous Angelino and all the histories of this exceptional location and his own further autobiography. —Evan Pricco