Emilio Cruz
To tell you about the Homo Sapiens series, I must speak in loud tones, concerning intimate urges which by habit I learned to speak about in whispers—vaguely disturbing, silent, transparent veils. For years I have attempted to learn what it is to be human.
Our brains are built upon primal electromagnetic behaviors, acting as biology, held in the memory of each neurological cell. From this, our senses bloom. Our blood contains archaic elements born in the sea from which we rise like Venus dreaming. This dreaming keeps us alive, informing the nervous system that we remain conscious even while we sleep. Sleep prepares us mentally to approach somnambulant tasks while we are awake, laboring to overcome the challenges presented by our existence, and to perpetuate ourselves. For we are what we were and are about to become, what we are not, yet could be, as we move out of vague, obscure consciousness, incarcerated by myths paving roads to enlightenment.
I decided to struggle to communicate what I thought was the most essential information about being human, to speak cautiously and humbly of what I know of personal pleasure and pain, whether in tragedy or triumph. Being human, I was ill-prepared. Like the ancient Bushmen expressing their primary religious urge across the walls of caves, I decided to paint. I hoped these works of anxious love could capture an element of the essence of our tragic human history, and the humble glory of our will to triumph and rise beyond ourselves.
I have been aided by ancient ancestral spirits. As I listened to the voice within, I pursued the trail of art laid out across the surface of the planet. I carried these richly inspired versions of other kindred artists home to visit the spirits within me. There are many, stretching from time to time and place to place, battling to overcome being human in the face of the bewildering sense of being alive. I learned to encapsulate scattered shards of consciousness, to forge an individual, urgent aesthetic language, placing my will upon a ragged cavernous cliff from which nothing could be seen, but only felt like the breath of fleeting apparitions, becoming an element of the experience of truth. I followed the ancient path of the artistic shaman, allowing my bones to be separated in dreams, awakened in a trance to visit death, and to bring back relevant tales that have the power to cure the pain of life humans bring upon themselves. A knowing art should alarm to awaken causing us to ponder through bewildering exaltation.
Whenever I enter a museum of natural history, and observe the paleontological bones of mighty ancients which appear to dwarf the stature of my fellow humans, I imagine that someday other beings not human might be exposed to our remains. This accounts for the scale I have chosen for these works: eight feet high, exceeding human scale.
When beginning a particular work, I try to clear my mind from memory and association, since these tools cannot aid me in my journey into the unknown. Having an idea of how each figure should look would inhibit my exploration. After priming the surface of the maple plywood ground, I begin to draw in charcoal, with no set image in mind, allowing the figure to emerge slowly as if conjured. I start with the spine, the communication instrument of the neurological system. I begin to darken the upper portion of the surface until the face of a stranger appears. I search into this face, trying to understand each character, asking questions as one would when meeting someone for the very first time. “Who are you?” “How do you feel?” “What is your life like?” “What do you want?” every figure is a stranger who has a story to tell. My role, respecting their formal integrity, is to understand them as individuals. I must always be compassionate and polite, behaving as a good host. I hope to force the viewer to ask the very same questions and alert one to the possibilities dwelling inside our living potential.
After the charcoal drawing has been completed, I pour hot boiling beeswax over it. Saint Augustine said, “Painting is only beeswax and bits of color.” I use beeswax to capture the translucent element of the skin, indulging in the reign of time. In this process, it is possible that my drawing will be destroyed. This is very alarming and frightening. The outcome is never known to me. If the results are successful, then the wax becomes skin.
The space in which my figures appear trapped, reflecting the human scale as a narrow, incarcerating passageway, holds out the possibility that once we recognize our spiritual destiny, we cease to be prisoners of our material form. Only in the will to dominate do we imprison ourselves. Each variation attempts to address aspects of our material form. Only in the will to dominate do we imprison ourselves. Each variation attempts to address aspects of a sacred visual language, speaking of suffering, honor, and transcendence, holding keys to self-knowledge. We are surrounded by mystery and represent its living embodiment. Each key is capable of opening doors to enlightenment and deep intoxication concerning what is essential.
Having repeatedly experienced the cruel desire since childhood to annex my humanity, shoving me into corners to experience only despair, I learned how important it is to assert my humanity, which came into being in Africa, migrated across the earth, led by the only “avant-garde” that society has ever known: Bushman and Bushwoman, our sacred elders, breaking ground.
As a child growing up in New York, I had the privilege of visiting the magnificent museums of this city: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hispanic Museum, the Frick, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney. I considered the diverse works of art I encountered all sacred resources of delight. My father first taught me classical drawing. This aided me in learning to love all of art. Reading about art informed me about the works considered great. It became incumbent upon me to discover why this was so. I took the pursuit of knowledge of art indiscriminately, allowing blindsight to be my guide. I wanted to learn, and learning demands humility, without shame. I feared nothing because I knew I was human, a descendant of Bushman and Bushwoman, crossing continents.
I came across African art, Oceanic, Pre-Columbian, Chinese, and Japanese art. From there, I learned that art could speak in beloved silence, could whisper in the ear of centuries, defying death, how scintillating I found these works. How close to the living blood of humanity and other sacred animals they seemed. It was as if for them the entire living earth was a religious space filled with an extraordinary array of life and the will to become. These works embraced my sense of religiosity. I lost all fear of love and her sister’s anguish. I knew art should inspire one to enter the spirit of non-being, and thereby exalt us, glorifying existence by recognizing human tragedy and its irony. As it was for Dante, who like an ancient shaman guided by Virgil entered the realm of hell, to descend in order to ascend, I learned ultimately that the secret to salvation is to know that life shall always remain perpetually bewildering for the living. For all is divine: a deceptive paradox in paradise, unrecognized and far too often despoiled.