Carlos Almaraz was a leading member of the Chicano arts movement in Los Angeles in the 1970s and ’80s. Almaraz earned his MFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 1974. He was involved in political activism throughout the 1970s, producing banners for rallies in support of Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers labor union. As a member of the Chicano arts collective Los Four, he and fellow artists painted public murals throughout Los Angeles that depicted the civil rights struggles of Mexican Americans and helped bring Chicano art to the attention of the mainstream art world. His paintings and prints portrayed the vitality of East Los Angeles through stylized forms and an expressive use of bold hues. A major retrospective of Almaraz’s work was presented at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2017 (via Artsy).

Southwest Song is a silkscreen print made in 1988 by Carlos Almaraz. The central figure in this composition is a luminous turquoise cowboy atop a horse. He follows close behind the silhouette of a running woman. A black dog with bared teeth and a darting tongue chases after him, and a red devil’s grinning face hangs suspended in the air. The head of an anthropomorphic cat-human hybrid juts into the right-hand side of the frame, its mouth open as if emitting noise. In the foreground, a jester-like figure reclines as he plucks at a banjo, seated beside a horned animal’s skull and a cactus. All of this takes place amidst a psychedelic swirl of colors and beneath a thin crescent moon and white flecks for stars. 

Almaraz was diagnosed with AIDS in 1987, and many of his works made between then and his untimely passing in 1989 dealt with his illness and imminent mortality. There’s a distinctive surrealist quality to this painting, with its vibrant kaleidoscopic sky and strange combination of figures. As such, I interpret this piece as depicting more of a spiritual journey than a physical one, perhaps reflecting the artist’s journey into the afterlife. He’s the glowing cowboy atop the horse, leaving the burdens and challenges of his earthly existence in the void in his wake as he rides into the radiant night.

Almaraz’s acceptance of his own death is extremely moving. He exhibits immense bravery in embracing the ultimate unknown at the end of a life cut far too short, as he passed away at only 48 years old. Viewing this piece prompted me to reconsider my own relationship with my mortality – would I be able to display the same courage if I were in his position? Such a question flies in the face of how we've been conditioned to view death in Western society. Although every single person has encountered or will encounter death, the subject is still treated as taboo. The avoidance of death prevents us from asking ourselves if we are truly living our lives to the fullest so that we could confidently say we would be as brave as Almaraz if we were ever in a similar situation.

The beauty of art, though, is that it can be perceived in infinite different ways as it is seen through the lens of each unique viewer. The enigmatic nature of this piece makes it especially open to interpretation. Southwest Song pushes the boundaries of reality, challenging its audience to imagine a world completely different to their own, where jesters and demons and cat-people float amongst a sea of color. What do you think brought this cast of characters together? How do they all relate to one another, if at all? What do you see in Almaraz's colors?