THE LEGACY NARRATIVES - VOL. III

Origins and training:

1. Edgar, your beginnings in painting were somewhat unexpected, finding your path through a poster in Durango. What prompted you to take that first step, and how would you describe those first years of training? Desperation prompted me, hence the importance of the offering and development alternatives that a society and its organizations offer to young people. I was lucky to find a constructive invitation. Even so, given my background and concerns, my beginnings were intense and powerful with the energy one has when someone wants to give more than 100%.

2. Your first steps were marked by the guidance of teachers in Durango, and then a search for knowledge that took you to Cuernavaca. What fundamental lessons did you learn? I highly valued the discipline they taught me and the one I forged myself; without it, it would have been very complicated to achieve my goals; it is also important to be faithful and believe in what you want to be.

Influences and style:

3. What artists or artistic movements have been your biggest influences? Johannes Vermeer of Delft, and all the worldwide artistic movements that have interpreted the vision of reality throughout history.

4. Beyond the obvious influences, is there any lesser-known artist or aesthetic current that has molded your vision of realism? I don't usually mention them much, but their languages continue to influence me. Several Italian painters of the Quattrocento: Piero della Francesca, Mantegna, Botticelli, to name just a few.

5. How would you describe your personal style within realism? What distinguishes you? Contemporary realism. Perhaps what distinguishes me is being an "emigrant" realist painter, which surely expresses itself with certain codes of different identity.

6. How has your style evolved from when you started painting until now? Undoubtedly, I have synthesized my structures in general terms, and more clearly understood the idea of the honesty of what I want to transmit.

7. Is your realism a search for absolute fidelity or a personal interpretation of reality? Where do you find the limit between representation and expression? It is just one more interpretation of reality, without absolutes. The limits do not exist; creation turns everything into one.

Creative process:

8. What techniques and materials do you prefer to use in your work? Oil paint and fabrics that have a very fine but resistant weave, like linen.

9. How do you choose the subjects you represent in your paintings? I choose them as carefully as possible since I am going to invest a lot of energy and time in executing them.

10. What role does photography play in your process? Is it a support tool or a starting point for reinterpretation? A fundamental role, photography is not just a support, it is a contemporary translator of how we see reality in our days, even for current naturalist artists.

11. What is your creative process from the conception of a work to its finalization? I conceive the idea and design rigorously to improvise as little as possible in the technical execution that demands all my attention.

12. How do you decide which details to include and which to omit in a painting? What elements are essential to convey your vision? My narrative must be coherent between the concepts and the images, even in ideas that aim to confuse the spectator. With experience, what to remove and what to put in is perfected; in my case, I seek synthesis and balance to avoid saturation. The human figure is essential.

13. Your subjects often evoke a sense of melancholy or introspection. What do you seek to capture in those moments of stillness? In stillness, emotions are experienced better and calmly, which is what I intend to provoke.

Life in Spain and perspective:

14. Has living in Spain given you a new perspective on Mexico? When you are an emigrant, you value your identity more and acquire a more self-critical and constructive perspective. Mexico is even more wonderful with its pros and cons from a distance.

15. How has your life in Spain influenced your perspective as an artist? Between Spaniards and Mexicans, we have many things in common, and at the same time too many differences that end up defining you more intensely as the artist you aim to be.

16. What differences do you find between the Mexican and Spanish art scenes? My disconnection with Mexico prevents me from being objective about the scene over there, but the issue of security and violence in our country must generate an incomprehensible perception for many Spaniards or Europeans; we see life very differently.

17. Have you found a dialogue between your art and the Spanish public? Are there differences in how your work is received compared to Mexico? "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." If you have the capacity to do it without losing your essence, it is ideal for incorporating yourself and being seen. In Spain, I have been accepted wonderfully; I hope my effort will also be valued in my beloved Mexico.

18. What elements of Spanish art, classic or contemporary, have resonated most with you and filtered into your own pictorial language? Spain is a world power in art; it was definitive for me to come and learn directly from Spanish artists. My answer could be summarized in what they themselves say about my painting, "that I paint technically like them, but with a Latin American language.”

Reflections on art:

19. What role do you think realism plays in contemporary art? Current realist painting is perhaps one of the artistic expressions with the greatest capacity to create a union between an age-old art that has been able to endure and evolve, and a new art that basically tries to function only with conceptualization but unfortunately is beginning to show signs of exhaustion with only a century of existence. I believe that realism can give the physical body that current conceptual art needs to transcend, at least in one of its directions, without having to justify itself with a radical discourse of the ephemeral. United, contemporary realism and conceptualism could generate new expectations that allow them to evolve and continue to transcend.

20. In a world dominated by the digital image, what do you think is the enduring value of realist painting? In an imaginary science fiction language, we idealize machines with feelings and memories. The codes we use when we paint, however primitive and basic they may seem, carry our feelings and memories attached. Every tool we use, however sophisticated, still shows a very complex formula of what it means to be a human being. The digital world is simply no more than a new and very interesting tool.

21. What is your biggest challenge as a realist painter today? That my pictorial technique continues to show my aptitudes and talents achieved so far, but adapted to my updated vision of reality. It is inevitable to mature and with that generate the changes that make us who we are every new day.

22. What message do you hope to convey through your work? I want to convey, with equal importance, physical realist paintings that express themselves through concepts and generate sensations, feelings, and emotions.

Projects and future:

23. What artistic projects are you currently working on? My characters and their narratives still belong to the same universe; however, they show different environments or stories between one painting and another; one could say they are inhabitants of the same community. I am creating networks of connection so that they reflect familiarity between the various stories, including new elements and expanding new versions through "series" and variations with other techniques. I am working on the "Transparencies" series, where I intend to paint "Symphony No. 2.”

24. What are your goals and aspirations for the future as an artist? I am at a point in the road with sufficient preparation to begin my process toward artistic maturity with dignity. I believe I have the necessary elements to aspire to a deserved recognition that allows me to take my profession to another level. I am at that moment where I must combine and take full advantage of the path traveled and at the same time put new learning into practice. I want to create well-being for my maturity to make my new projects a reality.

25. What advice would you give to young artists looking to follow a path in realism? Realism requires a lot of time and dedication; it is a very complex and difficult technique to execute. To achieve the intended results, you have to have a lot of tenacity and patience because you have to repeat the same procedures thousands of times, being conscious in each one. Young people should take advantage of that vital force that characterizes them to learn, perfect themselves, and if possible, travel to the nerve centers to receive information firsthand; learning English will help them a lot.

Connection with the public:

26. What emotions do you hope your work evokes in the viewer? Do you seek contemplation, reflection, or provocation? I want the viewer to dialogue with themselves, to perceive the sense of their existence in the smallest details of simple narratives with complex reflections. I seek a harmony of sensations, I seek the consciousness of disorder. Many times, being conscious does not solve things for us, but it solves our sense of acceptance.

27. How do you handle criticism of your work? We are all influenced by the category of the criticism, depending on who it comes from, but I have enough openness to receive and learn from criticism, even the not very well-intentioned or unfavorable ones.

Personal reflections:

28. What does art mean to you? In my journey as a painter, art has gone from being a cluster of sophisticated theoretical meanings to becoming a true experience from my own perspective. For me, art is experiencing the capacity of a thought or an idea and the emotions that are achieved and generated with it. The more versatile and sophisticated that experience is, the greater its scope and transcendence will be. That is why there is nothing like art to express the testimony of what "humanity" means in all its expression and complexity.

29. What is it that you are most passionate about in painting? What drives you to keep creating? Its versatility and technical-conceptual characteristics to adapt and survive. Personally, I like life... I increasingly like my own life and circumstances.

30. If you had to define your art in a single sentence, what would it be? Paintings that reminisce about past procedures but still manage to capture attention in a dizzying world of virtual digital realities.