"Sirenario" (2026, Dora Maar Residency in Ménerbes, France) by Gerardo Rosales

Sirenario, 2026, Acrylic and acrylic gouache on paper, 12 × 9 in. (31 × 23 cm)

"Sirenario" (2026, Ménerbes, France) by Gerardo Rosales

Gerardo Rosales is a Venezuelan artist who has lived and worked in Houston, Texas, since 2000. He creates paintings, murals and installations populated by hybrid figures that weave together myth, folk culture and political narratives, from the syncretic legends of Venezuela to the realities of displacement and migration. He painted "Sirenario" during his summer residency in Ménerbes, in the Luberon. He tells us about the creation of this work.

"Sirenario is the continuation of an interest I have had for a long time: creating hybrid figures. In the past I have painted many mermaids, this one came into being in Ménerbes, during my residency.

Two things happened that summer that fed directly into the painting. The first was Marseille. I fell in love with the Mediterranean — the sea, the colour — and I immediately made a connection with the Caribbean, with the sea that lies in front of Venezuela. I climbed up to the basilica at the very top of the city, Notre-Dame de la Garde. Inside, there are boats and ships hanging from the ceiling, votive offerings left by sailors. I found that extraordinary: the official architecture of the Catholic institution, built according to all its traditions, and at the same time the folk culture coming in and leaving its messages — giving thanks for surviving disasters, for help received from some divine force. That encounter between the institutional and the popular inspired Sirenario.

The second was the earthquake that struck Venezuela in June. Watching the videos, what I heard above everything was people thanking God, calling on a strong force. I am not religious, to be honest, but I am very spiritual, and I find it fascinating how people try to connect with some kind of energy that holds them when they are living through very difficult situations. Sirenario came out of that: a hybrid deity. It could be a self-portrait, or not. I sometimes think my work is very autobiographical. But I never admit it!

There are many layers of information in my work, but this painting is also simply about fragility, and about the beauty of ornament. My work has always been deeply interested in ornament, in one way or another. In Venezuela, I remember, ornament was seen as something less important — that influence of modernism, where everything had to be flatter, more restrained. When I hear that there are norms in art, I go in the opposite direction. I think this image synthesises a lot of what my work is about.

People often ask me about the little dots. Making them is very meditative — I let the flow happen while I work, it comes from somewhere unconscious. Some people connect them with Aboriginal Australian art, which I find beautiful, but it is not my source. If they come from anywhere, it is from Venezuelan folk art. When I started making art I was self-taught — I was studying computer science, I came from a family where there were no artists. I was about nineteen when I saw the ceramics made by folk artists from the Andes, the region where I am from. I had been exposed to Picasso and modern art, and I admired it, but the folk art spoke louder to me. It resonated better. That was the voice I chose to follow.

My intention with Sirenario was to make a work that speaks about my identity — a mestizo person, someone who comes from Venezuela with influences from Europe, from the indigenous communities, from the African communities, all those interwoven cultural myths. I wanted to reflect that syncretism in a single image.

Around the figure's head there are birds. For me they represent the sound of the cicadas entering my head in Ménerbes. They got inside my head, and they reminded me of my childhood in the Venezuelan Andes — the landscape of the Luberon does too. The birds are a way of showing how nature blurs into you, that connection which is so difficult to put into words. The image says it better than anything I can explain. And birds have always been present in my paintings: this idea of freedom, that admiration humans have carried for thousands of years — Leonardo wanting to fly, Icarus and the Greeks. All those stories come into my head while I paint.

The figure is holding a plant: it’s yuca, or cassava. Yuca is a staple food in Venezuela, a traditional food whose history is deeply connected to the indigenous communities, and it is a beautiful plant as well. But there are two kinds of yuca, and one of them is poisonous. If you don't know how to tell them apart, it is mortal. During the food crisis of 2017 and 2018, people in Venezuela died because they pulled it from the ground and ate it without knowing. So the plant carries both things: nature as a blessing, beautiful and therapeutic — and nature as danger. We sometimes romanticise it, but it can be harsh.

I believe this painting can speak to different audiences. A work has its own life, and the connection it makes with each person is very open. Children respond to the playfulness, the colour. Others find a cultural reading, a political one. Multiple readings — that is what I hope for."

Gerardo Rosales, August 2026 www.gerardorosales.com