Animalitos of the Soul

I don't know when it started, but the doodles I drew as a kid were an expression to cope with the turmoil of the times and country I came up in. I called them animalitos or baby demons, and I never told anybody that they'd jumped at me from out of nowhere when I least

I expected it. The last few days have been quite stressful for my family, and so they reappeared a couple of times. I've always incorporated them in my paintings as a marker, sometimes allowing them to fill the negative space on the surface, which perhaps is a metaphor for their initial purpose.   Some mentioned they look like nods to Basquiat, and though that doesn't bother me, and they do look tribal, a closer look reveals they are not even a contemporary art  reference. Before I ever knew what contemporary art or neo-expressionism was, the outside reference I would credit is found in the Petroglyphs of Cailagua as a kid. The ones I create always remind me of that, and I also use an old book as a reference in order to give them a historic, cultural, or social context when they go on my paintings. I found an old clip, which is the perfect demonstration of this process.