Carlos Llerena Aguirre: Represented Peru in the International Douro Printmaking Biennial
Douro Biennale vernissage
Carlos Llerena Aguirre, a PhD candidate at Transart (2022), represented Peru at the 11th International Douro Printmaking Biennial 2023 (10th August-31st October). The Biennial in Douro, Portugal reunited 62 Countries, 500 artists, 800 prints.
The 11th Biennial of Douro without limits Based on the oldest demarcated wine region in the world - the Douro winner of two heritages of humanity granted by UNESCO is world-renowned both for its vineyard landscape and for the archaeological heritage of the Côa Valley.
Here is the largest sanctuary of Paleolithic engraving in the world, but the Douro is also in the contemporary scene one of the biggest events of graphic art in the world, creating a strength and dimension that goes beyond the borders of the country and is projected for infinite horizons.
Pursuing this aim and ambition, the Biennial of Douro has overcome the challenges of interiority, the economic crisis, the cultural crisis, and the engraving crisis itself and it has kept alive the assumptions of the art and the autonomy of printmaking in the context of the contemporary art. To this end, have contributed the traditional printmaking and its secular alchemy, but also, the renewed trend of digital printmaking and the new media at their disposal, in order to give it the autonomy it needs to survive. The open field to printmaking by the new hybrid languages and nontoxic techniques, has designed it impact in an innovative way and with the vitality so long desired in its fields.
Douro Biennale statement
Artist Statement: CRITERIA AND MEANING BEHIND LUPO:
This large-format woodcut is a portrait of a stoic, social, noble, pack animal. A wolf who does not attack humans and is a fierce predator, but he prefers to hunt livestock in the wild. Highly adaptable social carnivores inhabit a variety of ecosystems. The first drawing and subsequent sketches show a noble wolf with big eyes, curious about his environment, surrounded by snow and Nordic pine trees.
Underlying landscapes and glaciers:
At first glance, this is a wolf’s portrait. There is an underlying world of landscapes hiding within the fur. Turning the print upside down the detailed hair of the wolf becomes a pine forest and the aerial view of the glaciers. This is a metaphor to express the vast territory they travel within Eurasia, Europe, Greenland, and the Nordic glaciers. The wolf fur macrocosm becomes a microcosm, it turns into a landscape when viewed upside down. Within the pupils of the eyes, I made water and ice reflections. My intention was to have a double-image woodcut to present it to the subconscious of human perception.
Origins :
The Eurasian wolf, Canis lupus appeared in Europe around 800 thousand years ago (kya) during the Middle Pleistocene and in the mid-latitudes of North America. The common wolf is a subspecies of grey wolves, native to Europe and Asia. They lived in all of Europe and Siberia, Asia, including Baltic, Celtic, Germanic lands, Slavic, Turkish, Greek, and Roman.
Technical specifications about the woodcut:
To obtain this effect, I worked with special wood engraving tools that were extremely fine and detailed to get the desired visual effect within the fine fur. I used Fabriano, heavy-duty 300-gram cotton paper. I wet the paper completely a day before printing. I inked the block with a large roller and used thick oil-based ink. After uncovering the paper inside plastic sheets, I placed it on top of the inked wood. The Venice Printmaking Studio in Italy housed a large-format handmade press, 2 meters in length by 1.20 meters wide.
Carlos Llerena Aguirre, Lupo. Woodcut. Animals in Extinction Series. (2023 Image size: 78” x 33.5”/ 198 x 84 cm).
The Wolf, the lion, and the tiger:
In our visual culture, lions and Bengal tigers are the kings of the jungle, heroic powerful, and an archetype of bravery and royalty in the animal kingdom. Wolves are seen as wild- sleazy, untamed evil animals. However, we can see lions jumping hoops of fire in a circus, tamed with a whip and meat morsels. We never have seen a wolf doing such shows of servitude. Wolves cannot ever be tamed. In my large-scale woodcut/engraving, I depict a wonderful, powerful animal in the style of Albrecht Durer. His drawing shows the lion as the king of the animal kingdom, strong and noble. In folk tales, myths animations, and comics the lion is depicted as positive and powerful, like in Disney’s The Lion King.
The wolf in public opinion and popular culture:
Wolfs have been depicted in myth, medieval folk tales, and art as a beast of horror, sadism, cruelty, and violence. In the Americas, the American wolf, Aguara Guazu, in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, and Peru, was sometimes seen as a Lobizon* a man-wolf attacking young women and eating sheep, chickens, and children. In Uruguay today, the Aguara Guazu is completely extinct from hunting.
Wolfs were drawn, engraved, and painted with realism, naturalism, romanticism, humanism, Native American spirituality, and South American magic realism. Contemporary artists choose surrealism and postmodernism for political commentary. Others have used a third level of depicting the wolf in an obscure dark, cruel archetype, storytelling bordering on propaganda. As in the work of watercolorist Walton Ford*. Hollywood has made many movies depicting the wolf as a werewolf. In today's popular culture, graphic novels, animation, and comics the wolf is a symbol of violence, cruelty, and sadistic sexual overtones.
Biennale Museum. Douro. Portugal
More about the artist:
Carlos Llerena Aguirre is a PhD candidate at Transart (2022). He represented Peru and USA with his woodcuts in the Norsk Internasjonal Grafikk Biennale, Norway. The Jubilam X Internationale Grafik Triennale, Norway and The Xylon Graphische International Triennale, Switzerland. The South Pacific 5th Bienal of Printmaking, Lima, Peru and the International Bienal of Douro, Portugal. Biennal Arequipa, Peru, Boston Printmaking Biennal. USA
He is currently a professor at the University of Miami.
More information: https://bienaldouro.com/artists/carlos.llerena.aguirre