Untitled

This untitled work by Jorge de la Vega furthers the themes and styles at play in a period when his art was strongly influenced by the pop sensibility and the mass media (other works from the same period include "Rompecabezas" [Puzzle], 1969). This work, however, was never finished: The artist died an untimely death in 1971. It was initially commissioned by a private collector as a mural for his home. The composition consists of a series of faces sketched out in bold lines that contrast with the white background. Binding the faces together are images of different foodstuffs rendered with great precision in strident colors. Sometimes the caricature-like figures are distorted by waving forms; other times, they have colorful halos that, in the case of the person wearing glasses on the right side of the painting, partake of the three-dimensional effects fashionable in painting at the time. The work is thus steeped in the psychedelic and highly ironic atmosphere characteristic of de la Vega’s late production.