artnexus #16

For Julio Larraz, painting means a display of fine craftsmanship, skillful drawing, a sense of color based on classical criteria, and the achievement of a carefully worked finish. Although both his small-format watercolors and his larger oilworks are realistic, they explore themes and situations that are enveloped in a sense of mystery, evoking events that are not always clearly discernible, allowing the spectator to complete the scene for himself.  Larraz's work reaffirms the artist's interest in the Spanish classics, Pieter Brueghel, North American painting of the nineteenth century, and in the magical realism which characterizes his strange figures set in situ­ ations not devoid of their own humor and irony.

Larraz's Cuban origin and his contacts with the Caribbean underlie his work and ex­ plain his frequent references to the geogra­ phy and special characteristics of the world of his childhood memories. For this reason, and despite the fact that he received most of his artistic training in the United States, Julio Larraz is essentially a Latin American artist whose painting celebrates color and the world of fantasy as characteristic fea­ tures of this reality.

IVONNE PINI