Garaycochea was worn in Lima- Perú in 1961. In a middle class family. The
youngest of three children. Since his earlier years Guido was worried about
histories of past time and visited Catholic churches admiring the Baroque Sacred
Sculptures and Painting staff inside them. Trying to understand watching those
images of Pain and Suffering, why people around was so worry on suffering. So,
they represented by Art that issue all the time. Images of Virgin Mary crying
for centuries, Jesus tor tortured and blooding for ever at the cross...were at
that point questions he could not answer. He had a close relationship with his
father grandmother who lived in Arequipa, a southern famous colonial city of
Perú and used to visit them for a while. He paid attention to the storied she
related about how life was at the beginning of the 20th Century. How she grown
up in a convent and obviously who guilty felt her for every thing people does
all time. At that point he began to understand that reality depend from the
point of view.
Garaycochea studies, as a typical middle class South American boy in a Private
Catholic School.
His parents died when he was a child. He grew up along with his sister and
brother, not really older than him. He studied Art and Teaching of Art at The
“Escuela Nacional Superior de Bellas Artes del Perú”, a very strict and
conservative school of beauty Art.
Guido graduated from Art School with some prizes and honors. A couple of years
later, he decided to moved to Chile to have a brief break and continue studying
and developing his Art. 80's for Perú were a strong time because of Sendero
Luminoso (Peruvian terrorist) and at the beginning of the 90's the country was
virtually in a civil war. Garaycochea decided that was a good time to immigrate
for at list for some time to another country.
In 1992-93 he moved to Chile and began to study again. He spent 12 years there.
He studied History of Art, Aesthetic and Theory of Art. He also taught for more
than 7 years in some Chilean Universities. At the same time he had more than
fifteen Solo Art Shows and more group Art Exhibitions in countries as Germany,
Spain, Austria, Perú and Chile.
What the artist initially wanted to do with his paintings was to describe his
historical Peruvian and South American legacy and heritage. He wanted to reveal
the greatness of the pre-Colombian cultures and the incredible philosophy of
life they had. He studied the funeral masks of the Chimú people, but these masks
showed more about human beings in general rather than about the Chimú. Those
masks and the use of some materials, like gold, showed him a new face of the
human being that seduced him: “the duality of the being, that interior turmoil
which exists permanently inside humanity”.
Duality has been the principal theme of his work. He is trying to explore inside
the depths of the human being, particularly inside himself, expressing through
his visual work, his own contradictions, his own dual feelings, and also his
deepest human characteristics.
When he paints, he is thinking of visual spaces, interior landscapes where
freedom is given in amounts he allow to flow. He tries to invite the spectator
to discover, with his use of gold, the duality of the human being that has been
present throughout history. He also invites the viewer to discover fragments
caused by permanent fractures in the being and to search for a balance, which
obviously, will never be found.
Guido Garaycochea moved to the United Stated this year after his experience of
International Artist in Resident at The Griffis Art Center. He is living in New
London and developing his Art now involved with the North Easter landscape that
he is in love with.
