Luis Cruz Azaceta-Photo by Carlos M Cardenes.jpg

As an artist you use your experiences dealing with your surroundings and your conditions. The condition of being an exile is of being in two places simultaneously physically in your place of exile, emotionally and spiritually in the place you left behind, your roots. This experience allowed me as an artist to address the condition of violence, racism, isolation, separation and oppression through my work. It gave me an eye to understanding that this experience goes beyond my personal journey to a perspective of a more global condition that many live within.

The rapid state of change in the world at large- the environment, collapsing economies, greed, war, revolution, terrorism - a point where individual citizens are rising against political, economic and social injustices is at hand.

Through art I confront this reality. My intention is to create compassion. The vehicle for compassion is the aesthetic that draws one into looking closely at what are, perhaps, sometimes horrific subjects and embracing them.