Alonso Galue-Visual Artist

I am so happy to announce I will be participating in the as part of curated by with so many other talented artists.

Vulture’s Lullaby is a theatrical project about the Venezuelan condition using masks, sounds and smells provoking a deep connection and agitate towards deep thought.

This project aims to create a poetic moment for the audience as led by the amazing drums by .crovetti

Come and feel with us.

Self portrait as prince of nations. (2024)
Acrylic on heavy weight paper.
36x45 in

Since I started painting I portrayed my self like some tragic character from Ancient greek stories from Ovidio; but this time I wanted to paint my self as one of my heroes when I was younger.

When I was younger I remember hearing my mom telling me the story of prince Solomon, son of David: One night God visited the him, after seeing his hard work and desire to make everything better, and said “ask for what you want and I will give it to you.” Solomon then asks: “…give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong.…”

Pleased by his answer God have him wisdom and with it he governed and built a great nation built in justice and equality.

I wish as him to be able to tell between good and evil, and decide the best path to go for my actions to be the best for everyone around me and the humanity at large.

About a month ago released his single “Chamita (me kiero morir vol 4)”- “Girl (I wanna die vol 4)” with this painting as a cover.

Portraying a musician is complex in several ways. A known image an image you can compare to others. The thing is making a work of art out of it.

The song is a bronkenhearted tropical lo fi mix and offers us a quick view of the new musical languages that are being developed in Venezuela and Latam.

I am really proud to work have worked with him for this production.

Thank you all and don’t miss his concerts if you are in Colombia.

“I hear a symphony” 24 x 9 ft
Acrylic, blue tape, and black ink on heavy weight paper.
A.Galue and W.Madrigal
Curated by
Show at in June of 2022

The ephemeral povera (made with cheap materials by a non-rich artist) mural could be divided in three parts. At the begging the GNB is taking a protester away while eaten by a portrait of W. like taking them out of the picture.

The second part starts with the cousins smiling in front of the head on fire and the smoke insinuating walking figures.

The third part are the portraits of the artists. W stands in front of the fire and A looks at the spectator like questioning them.

The music is on the color. The rhythm of the four handed brushstrokes and the supper posed pigments and color fighting to be seen.

The piece is called after the song by .

“I used to hear a simple song
(…)
You took my broken melody
And now I hear a symphony”

I won’t describe it or talk too much about meanings. I can say as trivia that Tamayo made the first movable mural, and that José Luis Cuevas made the first disposable paper mural.

Special acknowledgment to Wendy Madrigal that added happy colors to rough moments!

Self portrait in front of the Logan theater.

The artist is a thermostat of their environment.

Is this American?

I can do that.

Icarus Flights Avianca (US Version) 2024

Shown at @ agitator gallery the planes fall from the ceiling. 8 planes fall in front of a landscape as the stars of the venezuelan flag. The snow in the landscape unites the Sears Tower and the Pico Bolivar in a cold embrace.

The Icarus still in their planes smile with their children, injuries, and hopes ready to crash and survive. El venezolano se cae riendo.

The tricolor people do not have time to cry when there is work to be found.

There is no rest until the dictatorship falls.

Not all pets are dogs and cats. Companion animals vary from birds to alligators.

Here are two more animal portraits. The pig is available (11x14 in framed) and the dog is a portrait of Oddy a playful and friendly companion in Florida!

Pet portraits are available for commission.
Dm for pricing.

Remember to share the love!!

Pet portraits are an important topic in Art History. Companion animals are not a new phenomenon and have been happening since humans appeared, and so have animal paintings.

The question is: how to portrait an animal? What do I want to portrait of that animal? What expressions do they make more often? What is their personality?

When I made these two commissioned portraits of Lala (the dog), and Mathew (the cat) I was trying to capture expressions that caused me impressions of them like Lala looking down and Matthew showing his teeth. I am really interested in painting animals (like the Gorillas during We are All different, We are All the same)

I am also taking commissions of for pet portraits: This ones are 11x 14 in, heavy body acrylic on medium weight paper.

Send a DM and let’s talk painting.

#312

The first conscious memory I have of deciding I wanted to learn how to draw was asking my pre-school teacher to teach me how to draw like in

Akira Toriyama’s work was the first I copied, before michaelangelo and Rembrandt. I wanted to be like him and make intricate and detailed compositions. I like to thing I still carry those Manga influences in my work.

Good bye Akira.

Thank you for everything

When you inflate (inflation) the ballon (earth) people explotes (exploitation).
Ink on ballon

I think painting from someone else’s work is like a conversation, like a getting to understand what makes them human.

Since I was starting to take art more seriously I encounter the work of Lucian Freud (Sigmund’s grandson) and got lost in the textures, colors, and deformations.

For years I have collected his books and any sort of reproduction of his work. Even when I have made “master copies” of his work I wanted to really talk to him. I didn’t make sense to emulate him. The only possibility is being one self, and so Elmo, Baby Jesus and Cows converse with his fleshy characters for a Tropical-American-British speech to appear.

I hope you all enjoy it and share the love.

I spent a lot of time looking at the pieces trying to understand the topics, the movements, the interests, the humanity of the participants and using .crovetti music as a source of inspiration I saw the jungle, gardens, and Gorillas making the communion.

That is the thing we all accept what we have in common and we create a commun-ity. We all share the same origins. We are all different. We are all the same.

Something that this mural showed me was the joy of conversing with color and images, like the portrait of Ozni holding the mask she painted, or Elliot’s wearing flowers on his hair. Facing the white paper as bullfighters the brushstrokes hit and draw our inner communalities.

Thank you all for showing us our humanity.

want to thank you all for coming to this event and especially to for all your help!

We Are All Different We Are All the Same is a Community mural project in which .crovetti and I invited anyone who wanted to come to to paint in large heavyweight papers while experiencing his atmospheric music and interacting with various musical instruments.

The first day of the event was on December 10th, my birthday, and the exhibition will be up until the 6th of this month. For this project about 15 different artists painted freely on the papers and then I painted a portrait of the participating community members on the murals to create a conversation between our humanities, and our similarities.

Each paper ended up having its own personality, themes and composition, taking a similar shape to an Exquisite Cadaver as the ones made by the Surrealists. To tie the composition together all the papers have a portrait of a monkey or gorilla, as our closest cousins they are a clear example of how we are all different and the same sharing a common origin as species.

I want to thank you all for coming to this event and hope you got to see the final artworks at and specially to ,.michael, and for all your help!

This Saturday December 9th will open Potential Energy, a puppetry exhibition and I am happy to be showing my work among so many talented artist-puppeteers sharing a space and making it a little more magical and deep.

I’ll be showing this “live portrait of Animal”, part of the series of “Tell me how to get to” (but not exhibited before). Trust me when I say that you do not want to miss it if you are in Chicago!

Without further ado here is the press release:

Chicago is home to a rich and growing ecology of puppet artists whose work bridges disciplines and communities of makers. This sampling of works by local artists is intended to challenge expectations about puppetry and inspire makers from all disciplines. Take the rare chance to look closely at sculptural works usually only seen in motion at a distance. Celebrate material and formal invention, trace networks of collaboration, and discover some of the exciting questions and possibilities that are animating puppet art today.

Exhibiting Artists: Alonso Galue, Christopher Knowlton, Eda Yorulmazoglu, Jacky Kelsey + August Boyne, Jacqueline Wade, Jaerin Son, Jerrell Henderson + Caitlin McLeod, KT Shivak, Manual Cinema, Mike Oleon, Myra Su, Pablo Monterrubio, Tom Lee, Wonder Wagon
Curated by Will Bishop and Grace Needlman

EVENTS:

Puppets in Progress + Opening Party
Dec 9, 3-9pm
3-5pm: Join an informal gathering for testing out new puppet and object-based performances. Bring whatever you're working on and get encouragement and feedback from other Chicago puppet-folks! This workshop is FREE, and perfect for puppet fans of all skill levels.
Puppets in Progress is a project of Rough House Theater.
6-9pm: Party with puppet friends!

Music of Puppetry, Dec 15, 7pm A concert and conversation

Pop-up Puppetqu**rs - Jan 13, 7pm - Puppetqu**rs is an evening of short form adult puppet theater made for the qu**rs (and their allies), by the qu**rs. Artists include: Anastar Alvarez, Christopher Knowlton, Kimzyn Campbell, Leah Lara, Madigan Burke, and Mak Scheel. Curated and created by Lindsey Ball
Graphic by Oscar Solis based on puppets by Jacky Kelsey + August Boyne

Agitator Gallery is pleased to invite everyone to a community mural painting party this December 10th at 5 pm.galue will be drawing visitors on large sized paper, covering the walls of the gallery with a collective expression.crovetti will be playing live atmospherical rock at 7:30 pm!

Everyone is welcome to draw and paint what they want to help build a collective mural.

The mural will stay on the walls of the Gallery until December 31st! Bring your friends to our other events to show them the mural you helped make.

Tequeños (Venezuelan cheese sticks), Papelon (sugar cane lemonade) will be available for donation. Profit will help Venezuelan families arriving to Chicago!

Event starting at 5 pm until 10 pm.

(there will be some materials available but you are welcome to bring more)

3851 W Fullerton Ave, in the Hermosa neighborhood.

Psychojungle (2023)
Acrylic on heavy weight paper.
21x7 feet (6x2meters)

Psychojungle is the biggest piece of the series. There are over 20 monsters in the painting, and this American Sesame Street monsters co-exist with mask wearers from the “locos and locainas” festivity in Merida, Venezuela. This talks about the multiple voices that exist within one’s head. It also insinuates a Venezuelan-American identity that is taking shape. Tell me how to get to… somewhere.

Human portraits interact with the figures screaming, numb or happy, my friends are there looking in between.

Floating over the multiple scenes of the background a man recognizes him self wearing a surgical gown.

This paper mural contains multiple stories and allows the viewer to watch what happens inside from the outside.

Again I want to thank you , and for all their support while making this series.

Gracias totales.

Here are cleaner images of the paintings in “Tell me how to get to” that closed this Nov 25th at in Nashville, TN.

1) just hanging (10x7 feet)
2) fever dream (9 x 7 feet)
3) portrait of a monster asking for help. (7 x 7 feet)

In all the paintings you see a human (self portrait) interacting with muppet characters in absurdist scenes.

In “just hanging” (1) the main character tells a story that happens in the background while wearing the symbol of bipolar disorder in his hat.

The characters in the back are screaming at a man standing in a chair and Elmo’s legs fall in the composition from a corner.

What’s he doing there?
Why do the muppets scream?
How do I relate to this big feelings?

In “Fever Dream” (2) a human with a Christ like expression being pushed by a nurse monster and the other monsters try to silence him while the ghosts on top attack. Just remember: “the dream of reason creates monsters”.

Where is the character?
What are the ghosts trying to do?
Where do all of this come from?
What do I feel when I look at it?

“portrait of a monster asking for help” shows a self portrait sitting down like a defeated boxer with Big bird under one arm, the pills on the table, the guarimbas playing on the laptop, the Christmas lights and the count floating to his ears is a intimate and raw scene that remind us of our own.

Do I know this expression?
How is he feeling?
What is the count saying?
What is big bird looking at?

In all these works I tried to portray the manic and depressed moments I have gone through.

I just hope for a moment the viewers can see them selves in the work and empathize with the familiar characters.

The muppets serve as a bridge between the cryptic nature of art and our formative moments.

I want to thank , and for all the support during the creation of this series.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Do not forget to share the love!

“Tell me how to get to” is opening this Saturday November 4th we will have a toast at 6 pm (there is a typo in the poster).

This work is deeply personal. Well…any artwork should be somehow personal; but this one is specially.

Each one of the pieces walks by the experiences of re-connecting with the world, re-understanding the world. One of the things did to me was re introduce me to the concepts and meaning of the words. I see my self a little like the Count. He is there in the US with his weird customs of counting things and pronouncing words with an accent. I am here in the US with my weird customs of using my hands to talk and pronouncing words with an accent.

He is, as the other characters and viewers, introdhim self into a new culture and communities.

After walking in my internal jungle for months I came back with these paper murals (the biggest one is 21x7 feet).

I hope you can tell your friends in Nashville TN to come.

Thank you all for everything specially , for all the support in this project!!

This November 4th will open at “tell me how to get to” that is composed by a series of large format murals that portray mental illness and existential crisis using muppets to populate this world.

The internal forest is full of monsters.

Trust me you do not want to miss it.

“Tell me how to get to” is a deeply personal series of paper murals in which I portrait scenes of mental crisis using the muppets as a representation of the thoughts and multitudes that inhabit us.

I hope I can meet you all there! If you are not in Nashville, but know someone who is please invite them.

The date is:
November 4th
1-9 pm
At



“Do you want to be friends? -yep -yep”

“Is that me? Or are you me? Wait!”

I am happy to announce the opening of “Tell me how to get to…” this November 4th at in Nashville, TN.

Here is the press release to read a little more about it:

Saturday, November 4th 1–9 PM COOP Gallery is pleased to present Tell me how to get to… by Alonso Galue. Galue’s interest in what is universally human informs his painting subjects. A Venezuelan artist running from a corrupted system building narratives through art installations, his latest work is a series of paper murals portraying the instability of the mind and the eternal conflict with oneself. Using inexpensive materials to address labor, totalitarianism, mental health, and immigration, Galue’s immersive experiences, influenced by latin american absurdism and magical realism, highlight the abilities of low-income people as laborers, artists, and humans.

“Plaza Sesamo or Sesame Street was a way to learn about American society as an immigrant - new language, new rules, new system - and consequently, myself.” A puppet is an extension of the puppeteer, and as so represents the various character voices that live within our minds. “I do not aspire to make my art beautiful, but rather to be an on-going investigation that responds to the human condition.” The oversized paintings of self portraits fighting with themselves while muppets act as observants, actors, or monsters, made with quick and intense brushstrokes, ask from the viewer not their attention but their empathy.

Galue aims to connect people deeply with their own humanity and the humanity of others. Honest and visceral, his work alters the spectator’s everyday routine to stimulate questions about being human, power, comfort, community, society and ultimately our mental health, which are all hidden under the overload of information that distracts us daily from ourselves

The count is my favorite character of he is an immigrant that brings his outsiderness to the mix. He has different way of thinking and his obsession with numbers makes him count non stop.

In this painting the count realices his muppet condition. Heidegger thought that all things had some sort of essence that kept all things being what they are. He called this the “thingness of things”. We sometimes are able to recognize that humanness in our selves and gasp at it. The count now knows his mupettness.

1 painting, 2 paintings, 3 paintings..haha!

Live studies of Characters at the

(2023)
Ink on cotton paper.

The muppets are a deep representation of the human condition. Consider the diversity and complexity of their voices inhabiting a space for kindness, grouchiness, anger, love, and confusion just like our selves.

Nobel prize winner Herman Hesse said that the mind was like a jungle in which all these animals exist, and I think that is what these characters are the “monsters in the mirror”

I have made several series of drawings preparing for a project I will be showing more of soon.

Flowers and landscapes feel like a breeze to the hand. The flow and the delicate lines seem like an approach to one self. At the very end we all come from nature.

This are all Venezuelan plants because I like them. I grow up with them.

There are other amazing landscapes in the show that I hope we all can enjoy!

Thank you for curating an amazing show!!

Antropofagia (2023)
Photo performance, harina P.A.N

Today “have you eaten?”, an amazing group art show, opens at there are so many great artworks you do not want to miss. Stop by, have a drink, support the arts and have fun with us! I will be showing this piece for the first time.

A little about the piece:

Antropofagia is an art project in which the multimedia artist Alonso Galue eats arepa (Venezuelan corn bread) sculptures echoing Venezuelan and Chicagoan Art imagery in front of a camera, resulting in videos and photographs that will be hung as still frames and published online. The project exists in between multiple media including photo-performance, sculpture, and drawing reinforcing the hybrid concepts that characterizes the XXI Century.

It follows the Brazilian Movimiento Antropofago in which the artist accepts its place in society as a historical result of the elements that surround them while “eating / consuming". Other forms of art such as theater, music, poetry and cinema allow a new object to appear portraying the consciousness of our historical and societal values.

As a Latin-American artist producing work in the XXI Century Chicago, Alonso is constantly consuming images from Chicagoan and Venezuelan artists like: Ivan Albright, Ed Paschke, Charles White, Arturo Michelena, Armando Reveron and Jacobo Borges. The act of eating food is an interpretation of his influences and Alonso inserts his work in the narrative of a hybrid Venezuelan-American addressing current topics in a processual work.

-Pablo Guerra.

1. Alien arrives to earth
2. Alien thinks the earth is a good place to play and dance
3. Alien thinks he looks trendy
4. Alien recognizes he doesn’t have someone to play with.
5.Alien seats to think
6.Alien finds a playmate
7.Alien is content

We, the aliens, just want to play and dance. We like your rappers and . We are not as different at the end.

Let’s play together!!

Concept: A. Galue
Photography: W. Madrigal

Velazquez as seen from a toilet (2023)
Acrylic on canvas.

#312

Yesterday another opposition leader had to flee the country.

Hope is the last thing you loose; but once lost finding it is really hard. The dictatorship has been in power for way too long.

The streets are stained with protester’s blood. We have been bleeding and there is no doctor for this disease.

The pink tide is the worst thing that could happen to latinoamerica and I pray for us all for it to stop.

Venezolanos Sangrantes (2023)
Digital intervention on photographs.
(3/24)

Everyday more Venezuelans arrive to Chicago. We recognize each other. Our faces carry the mark of Cain. Dame una hairy arepa please with a papelon lemonade.

This series is really interesting and moving to me. The greatest Venezuelan artist was Armando Reveron (I am sorry Cruz 10) and he painted the landscapes of macuto erased by the sun.

120 years later I use the landscape as an identity form, we identify with buildings and towns. There is no Merideño that doesn’t know Las Heroinas, as there is not a Zuliano that doesn’t recognize la basilica o el puente.

That’s the thing. We are our monuments too, and our broken identity hangs in the empty plazas.

1) Carabobo Sangrante

2) Barinas Sangrante

3) Amazonas Sangrante.

Bleeding Venezuelans (2023)
3/24
Digital paint over free photograph.

This series is complicated in a bunch of ways. First I have to find the right representation of a state. What is the Barineness of Barinas? Or what makes Aragua, Aragua?

When I talk about Venezuela here the first thing I hear is “you have so many beautiful landscapes”.

The idea of identity is so complicated because it has so many different angles. I am not my landscapes but the sun runs in my blood.

1) Apure Sangrante

2) Aragua Sangrante

3) Falcon Sangrante