Stories: Stories

At Aracari we’re always interested in getting under the skin of Peru – understanding the places and people that make it the multifaceted cultural destination that we’re proud to showcase to the world. Recently, Caroline and I had the pleasure of meeting Pablo Patrucco, a homegrown Limeño artist at his apartment in Miraflores. This was not the first encounter between Aracari and Pablo - in 2012 Aracari sponsored El Placer es más importante que la Victoria, an exhibition of Peruvian artists at the Tasneem Gallery in Barcelona, which Pablo participated in. An artist who speaks with his brushes Pablo is quiet and soft spoken, but when you get him talking about his art, you can see the passion for his craft in his eyes. Born in Lima in 1975, Pablo studied History of Art at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos and Plastic Arts at the Escuela Superior de Arte Corriente Alterna here in Lima. Hyperrealism - a unique perspective Much of his work employs the hyperrealism technique – it’s extremely lifelike and technically very impressive, resembling high resolution photos but with an added narrative and emotive depiction. Beneath that impressive first visual layer, Pablo’s work is a commentary on life and society in Lima, depicting themes such as public transport, garbage, overcrowding, consumer products, pre-Columbian artefacts and more. An individual painting may look like a simple rendition of the subject matter, but as a series, there are clear messages on societal tends of accumulation, commercialization, trivialization and the abandonment of society. In the photo library above, there is a painting of a scene that could be from any of the hundreds of shoe shops around Lima. In isolation, it's not particularly remarkable. But when you look at it in the context of other pieces in the series, for instance the one depicting pre-Columbian artefacts, the commonalities solicit