Untitled Art Fair Houston : Diego dela Rosa

Caminos

  In October 2011, Diego de la Rosa left Venezuela for Canada, joining the vast exodus that has marked the nation’s prolonged collapse. The convergence of social unrest, economic free-fall, and the increasingly authoritarian grip of its government rendered the prospect of a stable future untenable. Acts of civic resistance—moments when citizens gathered to confront the violence of the political class—became woven into the daily rhythm of life. Side jobs, colloquially called “killing tigers,” emerged as indispensable means of survival.Mysticism, too, became a refuge, as many turned to religion, magic, and chance—through prayer, ritual, or lottery—as ways to imagine escape and possibility. Diverse stories, bound by the same struggle for survival, unfolded against the backdrop of a nation in crisis.

  Like millions of Venezuelans before and after him, De la Rosa left his partner, family, and friends, driven by the hope of freedom and the pursuit of prosperity abroad. His work Caminos—a triptych of paintings—functions as a homage to the fortitude of the Venezuelan people, translating their endurance into a visual language of allegory. Through three interwoven narratives, the paintings trace the emotional and imaginative resilience of a population confronting turmoil while striving toward freedom and change. Drawing on motifs from earlier series, De la Rosa crafts a hybrid narrative, where realism and fantasy converge to articulate the Venezuelan psyche as it negotiates daily survival, protest, and migration.

  Each panel unfolds through paradox: Venezuela as both lush paradise and political battleground, a landscape animated by natural beauty yet haunted by otherworldly creatures of power and oppression. Against this backdrop, the figures in each painting adopt divergent postures of endurance and hope.

  The first panel envisions protestors as heroic archetypes, bearing shields and swords against masked soldiers, crocodiles, and an eldritch creature—an epic rendering of resistance.

The second portrays resilience through civilians who live amongst the same creatures from the former artwork. They don’t fight against them, but instead live and work with them through a myriad of rituals reflecting their will to survive, from hunting jaguars for food, which alludes to the phrase "matando tigres" (killing tigers), to the adoration of divine entities in the form of anthropomorphic animals that bring fortune and care to those in need.

  The third depicts migration itself: Venezuelans journeying across rivers and jungles, entering a land where snow meets tropical flora—an uncanny fusion that reflects the merging of old and new homelands into a reconfigured sense of belonging.

  Across these distinct storylines runs a thread of endurance and optimism. In unison, the three canvases compose a meditation on liberty and transformation, tracing the many guises through which the human desire for freedom manifests. Caminos ultimately pays tribute not only to Venezuela’s journey towards revolution but also to the universality of resilience: a desire that endures by mutating through societies and individuals, allowing them to find new paths for change, survival and, perhaps, a happier ending.