GERACHO ARIAS

From his place of birth, the small town of San Juan in the province of Chimborazo, located at the foot of the tallest volcano of Ecuador, Geracho Arias has developed a universal vision of the world and humankind. A surrounding wild nature generated his primal sensibility, and that explains the origin of his pictorial themes and those of his sculptures too.

 

During his teens, he escapes to a bigger world. He finds himself in the warm Ecuadorian coast, where he grows to experiment an independent life. That tropical atmosphere will allow him to perceive new forms.

 

In Quito, the capital of Ecuador, he encounters a traditional school of art from which he will nourish himself. In the Art Faculty of the Central University he will get to know the academic way of understanding art, its technics and tools. He will be able to paint oil on canvas, he will learn to engrave on metal, cut it, file it down, polish it and mount the pieces into finished and unexpected works of art.

 

He later decides to live in Northern Esmeraldas, where he stays for many years. In Olmedo, a little fishermen town, he divides his time and efforts in teaching children and fishing for survival. This period there will enrich his visions with new themes.

 

His first shows took place in Quito and Cuenca. Both experiences will engage him with a public that starts appreciating his work. He will then take it out of the country to a very successful show in Chicago. A later show in the Foreign Affair Ministry will give him the necessary impulse to the next ones in Panama and New Jersey.

 

For two years he will contribute to Quito’s public ornamentation, with the creation of six monumental metal sculptures, being the most popular the one of the Toro in front of the Ministry of Agriculture. During that time, his paintings will reach Tama, Japan with an unusual acceptance and sales, fact that will reorient his universal visions. Similar situation occurred in New York City, where he decided to live for   five years, with his own and abundant artistic production.

 

His next incursion will be as a book illustrator. In short stories, his images accompanied the book Fuga Permanente by Gabriela Alemán, and Desnudémonos by Renato Ortega Fenner. In poetry, Huellas en el agua by  Antonio Correa Losada. And in journalistic chronicles, he contributed with 14 outstanding engravings for the recent publication Voyage Chronicles, 14 worlds by Renato Ortega Luère.

 

He would then make a big step in the geographic realm by jumping to the Galapagos Islands, where he will find those themes that identify him with a certain style and a new vision of the arid zones of the coastal line of the archipelago and its unusual inhabitants. The transparency of the ocean will attract him strongly towards agile animals and fish, those happy creatures that dive in front of his astonished eyes. His actual work concentrates in the Galapagos Islands, on its unwonted characters, with a new chromatic concept and the mysterious spirit that governs this beautiful and bizarre environment.

 

 

GALERIA VIRTUAL