Leo Esquivel
In the work of Leo Esquivel, layers of contradictions and allusions stack up like the layers of materials he uses. Esquivel skillfully shapes elements such as construction-grade styrofoam, sheetrock mud, plaster, primer, and oil paint to create striking objects that bring to mind dreams, fantasies, and memories. In Tu Madre, Guerro (“Your Mother, White Boy”), a boy’s face peers out from an illusionistic pillow that bears a hollow where his head apparently has been.1 As with his other pillow sculptures, Esquivel executed it while referring to an actual pillow set up in a still-life tableau, resulting in a beautiful rendering. However, the boy’s face has been bruised badly in a beating. We are seduced by the artist’s skill, yet it is put in service of creating an image that is painful to view.
In yet other layers, Tu Madre, Guerro relates to Esquivel’s Chicano heritage. The fight implied by the boy’s bruised face is a fantasy that the artist concocted as a response to racism he experienced as a schoolboy.
Edith features a beautiful bouquet of flowers centered on a mock mattress. The bouquet resembles the shape of a head; yellow flowers suggest blond hair, and two small, red buds form lips. The image of the woman’s head could suggest a lover, yet the diminutive dimensions of the bed seem to imply childhood. Esquivel associates the work with life events: an early girlfriend named Edith and youthful experiences working at construction sites where coworkers made catcalls at passing women.
To make his Insecurity Blankets, Esquivel bends pieces of metal mesh to imitate the ripples in a blanket; he then sews the pieces of metal mesh together and adds gypsum plaster to create a surface for an image. The process of making an Insecurity Blanket mimics the makeup of a gallery wall, as if his work has become a shaped section of it. So far, the images on the Insecurity Blankets are quite unsettling: one piece in process features a ghostly grim reaper. Esquivel may be on the verge of questioning the security of art world success in an insecure world. His ability to extend his art into new arenas may be the most compelling sign of this artist’s excellence.
—James Martin
