Alfredo de Batuc

Alfredo de Batuc is a Mexican American artist who was born in Mexico in 1950 but has been living and working in Los Angeles, California since 1975. De Batuc has worked in a variety of mediums including drawing, painting, ceramics, silkscreen and lithograph prints, and has also been commissioned for several special projects such as murals in the Los Angeles area. His work with Self Help Graphics during its early years and during the height of the Chicano Movement connects de Batuc to a rich history of political and artistic activism. In 2005, Alfredo de Batuc was stricken with a severe case of Guillain–Barré syndrome, which has kept him from active life since, and from which he is slowly recovering.

Biography Alfredo de Batuc was born in 1950 in the small village of Batuc, located in the northwestern state of Sonora, Mexico. He lived in this village for the first thirteen years of his life until he decided to leave home to join a Roman Catholic boarding school. De Batuc left the boarding school after three years to join his family, who had recently relocated to Hermosillo, the state capital of Sonora. The dam was meant to provide water for irrigation and generate electricity but resulted in the complete flooding and subsequent destruction of the village of Batuc along with two other neighboring towns. and is reminded “that in the house of [his] childhood, fish swim.” Over the course of his career, de Batuc has produced works on paper, paintings, ceramics, silkscreen and lithograph prints as well as special commissions for murals and other commemorative pieces. Unfortunately for de Batuc, the disease mostly affected his upper extremities, resulting in the paralysis of his hands and the inability to continue his artistic career. Since the onset of the disease, de Batuc has been involved in extensive physical therapy in order to recover his mobility and independence. While de Batuc still suffers some residual effects such as extreme fatigue, he has begun to produce art again, albeit only small drawings and paintings.

Artistic practice De Batuc is chiefly concerned with the formal elements of art and design, including composition, color, visual harmony, and three-dimensionality. De Batuc has depicted the Presence throughout his body of work, but it can be seen specifically in his paintings entitled Presence with Volcano and Dog and Three Men in a Boat (Presence).

The Los Angeles City Hall is another notable and recurring symbol in de Batuc’s work. After settling in Los Angeles, de Batuc developed a desire to anchor his works in the area. He decided to use the Los Angeles City Hall as this marker and identifier as opposed to other landmarks of Los Angeles such as the Hollywood sign. According to de Batuc, unlike these other popular icons of Los Angeles, the city hall represents the people of Los Angeles, both legally and politically. De Batuc also cites the rivalry of Los Angeles and New York as artistic capitals of the United States as a reason for the repetition of this symbol. De Batuc aims to establish Los Angeles as an artistic center rather than solely as a center for the television and film industry with which it is typically associated. In placing his artworks firmly within the city of Los Angeles, he hopes to bring about the recognition and appreciation of Los Angeles as an important artistic center of the United States. De Batuc 's representations of the Los Angeles City Hall can be seen in many of his works including Seven Views of City Hall, Our Lord City Hall, and Sub Rosa.

Since the efforts to promote the festival began in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Self Help Graphics has commissioned local artists each year to create commemorative serigraph prints to memorialize each years' celebration. The prints have been used as marketing materials or simply as a means for local artists to reinterpret the festival in relation to their own experience as Mexican Americans. These commemorative prints created for the festival have achieved national recognition and have led to a new appreciation for Chicano art and artists. Therefore, they also serve as important works of the Chicano art legacy as well as the Chicano Movement in general. De Batuc created these commemorative prints for the Dia de los Muertos celebrations of 1979 and 1981, entitled Four Seasons and Las Cuatas, respectively.

Las Cuatas Las Cuatas is a reinterpretation of a painting by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo entitled, Los Dos Fridas. As in Los Dos Fridas, Las Cuatas depicts two seated representations of Frida Kahlo as the figures hold hands and are connected by their exposed anatomical hearts. In de Batuc’s print, the Frida on the left is portrayed as a calavera, a representation of a human skeleton that is an important symbol connected to the Dia de Los Muertos festival. The two Fridas face each other as they hold a mask of one another's face. Cherubs frame the print as they hold a banner heralding the words, “Dia de los Muertos, 1981” above the seated figures. The Hollywood sign, Los Angeles City Hall, and Watts Towers are visible through the windows in the background of the print, establishing the setting of the scene as within the city of Los Angeles.

Other notable works In addition to the extensive amount of works on paper de Batuc has created, he has also taken part in several special commissions such as murals. One of his most well-known and most reproduced works is his street mural depicting the late Mexican actress, Dolores del Rio, who was one of Hollywood's first Latina actresses. De Batuc was chosen for this mural commission after the Social and Public Art Resource Center (S.P.A.R.C.) of Los Angeles sent out a competitive call for submissions and ultimately accepted de Batuc's proposal above all others. It is located at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Hudson Street in Los Angeles.