The Squareness of Tradition:

I grew up in Colombia, South America, and in a culture that celebrates and glorifies bullfighting, among many other things. A violent yet seemingly graceful encounter between two strangers and between two magnificent species who, for a few precious minutes, pretend to casually cross each other’s paths and engage in a dance of life and death. In it, the precise maneuvers and the graceful, daring moves executed by the Matador create a convincing mask of the violent ritual between Torero (bullfighter) and Toro (bull), and where an elegant yet bloody flamencoesque duel of life and death is played out as artful, for-the-sake-of-tradition entertainment.

Bullfighting is, without a doubt, primitive and brutal. I believe it to be a senseless, inhumane and completely unnecessary tradition to preserve as long as we continue to kill both, the bull and our own belief in possessing a humane regard for animals. This painting, on the contrary, celebrates the colors and the graceful movement displayed by the protagonists of the tragic spectacle. It also celebrates the dynamic interaction between man and beast and the alchemy of courage, instincts, audacity, gracefulness and luck thrown together as a form of entertainment. But this painting is NOT about crowds of people cheering on and applauding to the systematic and gradual torture of a beautiful animal. It is NOT about people who subconsciously choose to freeze-frame daily reality for a few hours, in order to rejoice in the killing of a live animal. The Squareness of Tradition is a pictorial statement against the seemingly blind attitude that our society adopts when it comes to “legalized” violence and graphic brutality of both animals and human beings, during a public spectacle that borders into circus-ring entertainment disguised as “Tradicion Taurina.” . . . (continued)