With his first exhibition called “New Pop” the Venezuelan Carlos Apitz stands out among the many artists who are currently residing in the United States.
Analitica.com, 02/09 2017 – Por Laura Martínez – Photo : Nuevo Herald
With his first exhibition called “New Pop”, the Venezuelan Carlos Apitz stands out among the many artists who are currently residing in the United States.
He started in 1980 as a graphic designer, it was at that time that he made his first artistic works for the market. However, time later he stopped this branch to delve into commercial illustrations, which led Apitz to found the first computerized department in the city of Caracas, in 1987. By then, he only had a Mac 512 machine, but his success was that they multiplied to six more computers for the agency in a few months.
As he told Analítica.com, his agency was the first to invoice, taking the entire creative team by surprise. From that moment on, he applied the “commission earnings” modality, due to the innumerable designs sold, which began to give his agency new management and innovate in more effective earnings systems.
In 1991 he decided to become independent and thus began a tour of talks and private classes to recognized companies, which currently do not exist in Venezuela. He emphasized that today “many of the people who worked by my side already have their own companies, thank God.”
For the years 2002-2003, he was hired by the Yukery juice company to make the main image for the children’s market, the result of the project is a little raven, which he called Blue. However, years later he was chosen, again, as the creator of the image of Del Monte juices, this time designing Monty, a funny green bird.
Another of his skills at the moment of giving free rein to his passion is the elaboration of caricatures, which gave much to talk about on social networks; since most of them issued a message from some Venezuelan. However, for political and economic reasons he stopped the art for about 5 years, which at the time forced him to leave his native land.
Currently, Apitz is focusing on a new style, this being modern pop art with a lot of colors and incorporating a bit of kinetic style.
The lung of Caracas
With over 30 years of experience in this medium, Carlos Apitz reinvented himself with “New Pop”, an exhibition in which he brings together more than 20 works, including one of the most characteristic paintings of his career, inspired by the Ávila hill. , the work is called “The Ávila in five times”.
“If you look closely at the Ávila mountain, you will see that in the morning it has one color, at noon it has another color, in the afternoon it has another color, at night it has another color and in the early hours of the morning it has another color (almost dawn). …) then, instead of making five paintings with the same mountain but with different skies, I decided to make a single image five times”, he said.
“When I arrived in Florida I realized how essential it was for me to have a mountain around me, since everything here is flat and I am used to the mountains of my land, in this case, Caracas.”
In the exhibition you can also find portraits of the famous Frida Kahlo, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Marilyn Monroe, the latter being one of the painter’s favorites since he claims to be an admirer of her beauty, because of how expressive the image could become. remembered sex symbol.
The exhibition is located in the Adelmo Gallery, embedded in a well-known Cuban neighborhood in Florida. “The acceptance of the people has been so great that in the first stage of this project we had to close the doors because no more people entered the place; that is why we decided to extend it for a month,” said Apitz.
Regarding the current situation of Venezuelans, as immigrants in the United States, Apitz explained that “many who have left Venezuela as professionals come to Florida to do any type of work and this situation is difficult, because unfortunately here (USA) you will not be able to exercise your career. I have already had many cases that have knocked on my door and it is sad to see all this.”
