Artist
STUDIO
BY WESLEY PULKKA PHOTOS BY KATE RUSSELL
Abstract Emotionalism No single medium or style can speak this idiosyncratic visual language
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anta Fe multimedia artist Carlos Carulo of Santiago, Chile, moved to the City Different in 1974 after several years of architecture and fine arts studies and travel around Chile, England, and Sweden. Following a brief return to Chile to reconnect with family, Carulo visited friends in Deming, New Mexico, who urged him to consider Santa Fe as a possible home. At first sight, “I fell in love, and I’ve lived here ever since,” Carulo says. For 10 years Carulo has lived and worked in a quiet neighborhood on Santa Fe’s west side. Despite high ceilings, uncluttered floors, and generous track lighting, the voluminous, well-appointed studio barely contains his creative imagination. The walls teem with muralscale paintings interspersed with sketches, beautifully executed abstract metal sculptures, and small maquettes. Several works in progress occupy one end of the studio opposite some comfortable chairs, a round table, and a small sofa. Carulo has manifested a living workspace that echoes his disarming, graceful personality. He is currently preparing for a spring exhibition with Riva Yares Gallery that will include some works from his Artifacts series that were included in his new book. “I’m trying to create whole worlds to contain the fragments of artifacts I’ve already been working with,” he notes with a sweep of his hand toward the easel end of the studio. Over the years, Carulo has explored a variety of subjects and styles, including his wildly successful Pueblo series. But he keeps returning to surrealism and abstraction. His complex compositions include figurative elements, mechanical references, Mesoamerican iconography, and his own visual grammar. “My work is always changing, and my newest paintings could be bracketed in Abstract Expressionism, but I call them Situationalism, something that [Jackson] Pollock was talking about during his lifetime. Pollock named what he was doing Situational art, but historians dropped that ball. I think of my paintings as responses to emotional situations as they come to you in an abstract way.” Carulo’s view of abstraction is shared by others, including the late Taos artist Agnes Martin, who referred to her pale-hued minimalist paintings as expressions of abstract emotions. His powerful canvases and works on paper automatically trigger visceral responses. The juicily foreboding dark lines, intense colors, and complicated forms are a far cry from the safely bland corporate office art or hackneyed nostalgia occupying many contemporary galleries. 134 Trend » Spring/Summer 2011 trendmagazineglobal.com
Carlos Carulo sits in front of his Artifacto Grande, a 6 × 6 foot mural in his studio. Opposite top: Maoi #4, a painted aluminum sculpture, is part of a series inspired by the monumental heads on Easter Island. Opposite bottom: Several works in progress surround Carulo’s mural Reformation over Yellow on the studio wall.
Carulo is an able artist and excellent draftsman who brings skillful execution and a playful imagination to any medium or style. But his first love is abstraction. “In many ways I see realism as an enemy of contemporary art. Traditional realism becomes a habit that prevents many people from being able to see in new and different ways,” he says. “Our perception of reality is always changing; there are no fixed points of reference, so we have to keep our eyes and minds open to new possibilities.” Carulo’s expansive view of art is informed in part by his admiration for Chilean artist Roberto Matta, who also studied architecture before art, and by Pablo Picasso. He sees enormous value in both artists’ symbology and mastery of abstraction, and he occasionally emulates specific works, such as Picasso’s Guernica or Matta’s A Grave Situation. “I’ve always been amused by Picasso’s statement that master artists copy, while geniuses steal,” he says with a broad smile. Though Picasso and Matta were also sculptors, Carulo’s favorite is Eduardo Chillida, a Basque artist who quit professional soccer to