ARTISTS

Joaquín Trujillo

Baxter St. Residency (2019)

Lamentable tierra / Sorrow Land

Joaquín Trujillo (Los Angeles, California, 1976. Raised in Zacatecas, Mexico. Lives between Brooklyn, NY and Zacatecas). Artist, curator, editor and the youngest of eleven siblings, Joaquín Trujillo was raised in a small town on the outskirts of Zacatecas, México. His determination manifested itself at the early age of 12 when he left his home for Los Angeles. There he lived with his brothers in a one-bedroom apartment. He remembers his first trip home after months of living in LA. Riding in the back of the pickup on the dirt road to his parent’s ranch, the landscape was clouded by dust being kicked up from the truck’s oversized wheels. As they neared the front porch, his father’s face appeared through the dissipating sediment. He was older. Traveling back and forth from LA to Mexico became Joaquin’s way of life –a way of nomadic stability. With one bag still packed, he now calls Brooklyn home. These consistent breaks for time and space are sewn into the fabrics of his work and influences. While many artists step behind the lens to capture a moment, Joaquin uses the camera to reconstruct the past –to fill in the gaps. He imports a body of work and a worldview inflected with a freshness of vision and technique. His potent yet subtle approach to color and texture emulates a structured slippage of heritage. Building upon the dichotomy of his Mexican heritage and American education, he weaves together an uncanny modality of childhood innocence across culture, place and time.