FARLEY AGUILAR

b. 1980, Nicaragua

Boy with Flag, 2018

Oil, charcoal and graphite on canvas
69 x 43 in.

Collection of The Bass
Gift of CJ Follini
2020.12.1

Based on antique found photographs, self-taught painter Farley Aguilar’s figurative paintings explore questions of personal identity and its relationship to history, as well as themes of violence and early 20th-century gothic Americana. Painting over photographic group portraits so that the original figures are obscured, Aguilar creates unsettling, psychologically charged compositions in which his subjects appear to wear masks.

Using black and white photos allows more room to work with color, Aguilar says, adding that he researches widely and may look at many photos before one resonates with him. “I’ll look up a certain subject like a boy holding a flag or a group of people outside of a school or a factory,” he says. “A lot won’t work but there will be one or two that will speak to me and I can work with them and use them as a starting point.”

Aguilar lives and works in Miami, FL.