Hombre De Mar 1921

Carlos Quizpez Asín’s Hombre De Mar, or ‘sea man’, is an enigmatic little painting, just ink and watercolour by the looks of it. I can imagine the painting came into being almost intuitively. Look at the thin washes of blue that create the background, punctuated by these dark, almost gothic shapes of what look like trees. Then there's this figure, this 'sea man' himself. Maybe he's a fisherman, maybe a priest, or maybe just a guy who likes to hang out by the docks. He's all wrapped up in black, giving us a sidelong glance. I like to think about Quizpez Asín playing with the fluidity of the ink and watercolour here, letting the darks bleed into the blues, letting the painting almost emerge out of the water itself. His work is often described as surrealist-influenced, and I can see that in the moodiness here. There's something theatrical about the pose of the figure and the way the trees frame him. It reminds me a little of Edward Munch’s paintings, but with a more Peruvian twist. It just goes to show you, artists are always in conversation with one another. It’s like a big, ongoing, visual telephone game.