Title Page from Estuve casi todo el invierno en Rheinlandia, escribiendo estos boleros - A Fully Illustrated Winter Book

This print from a series of lithographs grew out of the artist’s first experiences of winter as he traveled through Canada and Europe in the 1990s. In the artist’s own words, “Like the texts, the images (all self-portraits) speak of loss, mutilation, encounter, and rupture. The accompanying boleros—a form of Caribbean music intertwined with the lure and sleeplessness of erotic passion, requited or not—set up a virtually sonorous cultural counterpoint with the images of gray, wintry landscapes and bitter, frustrated figures. The bolero supplies a sugary sweet, abundantly smooth musical background to the sordid experiences and disagreements depicted here in hostile cities or messy rooms—locations marked by grotesque and tragic qualities—or in landscapes sketched under lead-gray clouds.”