History of culismo

It all started unexpectedly with the commission of ballerina drawing. In one of many sketches, beginning always with the slipper, the ankle was too wide to allow me to continue onto the leg. With certain disdain, I closed the gap with a circle and what I saw flashed me with its potential. I immediately put the ballerina aside and went on to explore the different angles of this newfound shape. Culismo had just been born.

Taking a break from my profession as animator and designer, I travelled to Spain with the idea of developing culismo. I began to attend the Círculo de Bellas Artes to partake in nude model sessions and study the anatomy of the human body. I applied bones and muscles into my early shapes and so I rendered my first series of carbon drawings.

Color was the next step in line and acrylics seemed to be the most suiting medium. I created my first paintings based on references from the animated cartoons and comic strips which had accompanied me throughout my life.

Since then, culismo has not stopped evolving. Artists such as Keith Harring, Pedro León Zapata and Pablo Picasso, among many others from diverse backgrounds, have placed direct influence in my creative processes, allowing for the establishment of visual codes which today give culismo its genuine character.

Time will tell if culismo will find a roof in its development and if it will leave a print into the history of contemporary art. I even wonder if it will someday stand as a starting point for newcoming art forms.