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• 1 2017-05-18T17:46:19-07:00 Carlos Almaraz 8 Mexican-American plain 2017-05-18T19:37:44-07:00 Carlos Almaraz is known as being one of the four artists to co-found a local art collective called Los Four in 1973, and whose collaborations brought Chicano street art to the attention of the Los Angeles mainstream art community. Born in Mexico City in 1949, Almaraz grew up in Chicago and Los Angeles, but spent the majority of his childhood in Chicago, where his father owned a restaurant and worked in Gary steel mills. The neighborhood he was raised in was multicultural, and the experience led him to having a great appreciation of the melting pot of American Culture. He was first influenced by art on one of the family trips back to Mexico City, when he saw a painting of John the Baptist in the Mexico City Cathedral. To Almaraz, the painting "appeared as a gorilla to his young eye and frightened him, but it also taught him 'that art can be something almost alive'".
  Almaraz studied at the University of California, Los Angeles, and then later went on to receive a Mast of Fine Arts degree from Otic College of Art and Design in 1974. With his career as an artist just beginning, Almaraz created murals, banners and other art for César Chávez and the United Farmworkers Union. One mural that became popular, Boycott Gallo, was painted on the All Nations' Center in East Los Angeles and had become a community landmark before it was unfortunately taken down in the 1980s. Other pieces he is widely recognized for are his depictions of Echo Park and his freeway car crashes in which he captures the L.A. urban landscape with breathtaking textures and colors of paint. He tends to present an aspect of life's chaos balanced with tranquility in his artwork.
  Although Almaraz tragically died at the young age of 48, he succeeded in leaving his mark on this world. Not only did he create incredible and powerful art pieces, but he brought critical attention to the early Chicano Art Movement. He used his art for good during stressful political times and when he was supporting César Chávez. Much like today's political unrest, Almaraz expressed his thoughts through a creative outlet, and gave others the inspiration to do so as well. Now, Almaraz is remembered by many with his art displayed around the world, and they continue to be a major influence on younger Latino artists. 
  "Art is a record, a document, that you leave behind showing what you saw and felt when you were alive. That's all".
  - Carlos Almaraz, March 4, 1969.
  
  Written by Megan Corcoran