My gaze is directed back toward my homeland of Caracas, Venezuela, where I am drawn to the density of the urban landscape. Working primarily in oil painting, I aim to shed light on the complex and inescapable relationship between oil production and modernist architectural structures that reshaped the country in the 1940s.

My work centers on midcentury modernist architectural projects funded by oil. After decades of neglect, those buildings remain dilapidated, stubborn witnesses of a time before the more recent political upheaval, authoritarian politics, and rampant corruption. The memories of spending long days among those buildings in that imposing landscape left an indelible imprint on my psyche. Decades later, from a migrant’s perspective, I grapple with the shift of Caracas’s beauty and its recent chaos. My memories of this place help me remain connected to the primordial roots of my motherland, my Venezuela, mi querencia.