Julio Carrasco Bretón

Julio Carrasco Bretón (born 1950) is a Mexican artist mostly dedicated to murals and canvas work. He invented a technique for creating murals which allows him to create panels in his workshop, and then stack them for transport to the assembly site. His educational background is in science and philosophy as well as art and the themes in his work, especially murals often reflect these themes. In addition to creating art, he has been active in cultural, artistic and copyright issues, involved in the founding of a number of organizations and involved in others additionally.

Life

Julio Carrasco Bretón was born in 1950 in México. He studied chemical engineering at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, graduating with honors in 1975. He studied painting with Lino Picaseno at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas .

His career has been dedicated to art but he has been active in issues related to art, culture and copyright. He collaborates with a number of newspaper and cultural magazines such as Archipiélago, Excélsior, México Hoy and Quehacer politico as well as two radio programs on Radio Fórmula and Radio 620. He has given over seventy talks about culture and copyright in Latin America, the United States, Spain, France, Canada, the U.K. and Italy.

He has participated in the founding of a number of organizations including the Sociedad de Artistas Ludicos, Sociedad Mexicana de Derechos de Author para los Artistas Plásticos (Somaap) (president from 2001 to 2006), the Sociedad Mexicana de Artistas Plásticos “SOMART” in 1980, the Consejo Mundial de Artistas Visuales in 1989 and Academia de Ciencias Naturales in 1993. His best known murals in Mexico are those at the Camara de Diputados in Mexico City and a mural related to Mexican president Adolfo López Mateos at the Plaza Legislativa. Other important murals are found at the city government building in Monterrey, the national Academy of Art in Sofia, Bulgaria and the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva.

Artistry

In general, his paintings have a surrealistic influence can be seen in his use of figurative, geometric and abstract elements in his works. They often have an element of playfulness in the compositions, lines and the use of color. The mural called “La epopeya del intelecto” deals with the ability to create and invent. His canvas work is usually of medium size. Themes in his canvas works usually relate to the erotic and literary along with moods, human relationships, politics, dance, cinema, the theater and poetry. The feminine figure appears frequently in this work.

Carrasco is one of the few Mexican artists who still promotes muralism, with innovations, although there is little government support for such projects. Most of these are of the “isoplastica” type, created in panels in his workshop and then transported to the place where they are assembled. He considers himself a fan of the techniques of Siqueiros, especially the use of multiple angles or “poliangulariad.” One of these portable mural commemorates the Battle of Puebla in 1985, which traveled around the state of Puebla .

He believes that he work should be completely independent and for this reason, he has never been an artist-in-residence at any public or private institution.