Esteban Ramón Pérez: Brown Noise

Rebecca Camacho Presents is pleased to announce Brown Noise, a solo exhibition of new and recent works by Los Angeles based artist Esteban Ramón Pérez. Rooted in themes of legacy, the duality of belonging, obscurity, and emanation, Pérez’s interdisciplinary practice intertwines the cultural and artistic sensibilities of his Xicano heritage with the visual language of postmodernism, challenging conservative interpretations of existence.

Concerned with the intersections of materiality and iconography within American cultures, their implications, and their relationship to subcultures, labor practices, social classes, and socio-political histories, Pérez’s work engages both personal and historical narratives. Spending much of his youth in his father’s upholstery shop, scrap leather craftwork is fundamental in both two and three-dimensional pieces. Across wall-works, either stretched on handmade local cypress frames with exposed cross-corners or hanging loose on short wooden poles adorned with feathers or metal studs, leather fragments are meticulously pieced together, layered, and re-shaped, sewn to compose a uniform whole. Structural stitched seam lines establish architecture within the work, creating an abstract base to hold further figurations. Whether inscribing imagery with a modified tattoo machine or masking intricate forms then covering their surround in multiple, varied layers of translucent paints and metallic media, Pérez’s nontraditional techniques both obscure and illuminate surface color and light, a metaphor for the duality of what is known and what is unknown.

Akin to the concept of chiaroscuro, a technique often employed by baroque artists and simply translated as ‘light and dark‘ or ‘clear or clarity,’ Pérez’s paintings embody the notion that all things are dark until touched by light. And that light does not reach all areas at all times, so there are always spots, moments that remain unseen. This combination of clarity and obscurity defines literal and figurative perception. An artist can only paint what is known to them, what is unknown remains in the dark. An audience can only see what is in the light.

The exhibition also centers three sculptures - one hanging, one on the wall, one freestanding. Composed of varied textures, techniques and materials side-by-side, each work carries forward traditional craft, folklore and cultural archetypes. In Supertouch (Rana), a steer horn, a symbol of ferocity and virility, juts aggressively into space. A red leather ‘flag’ – an indication of danger, to stop, colored to Mexico’s roots and the blood of its heroes – suspended on point and studded with an X. Peacock feathers, tokens of protections, divination and light magic, attach around and below. Painted gourds, a traditional art form for centuries in Mexico used in a range of rituals and ceremonies, populate (Maybe) In The Next World. While rooster feathers, significant markers of bravery, honor, responsibility, and loyalty, join lightly together with sisal in Origin of X (Spring).