Raul Gonzalez III is simpl y on fire .
Good.
The Artadia Award-winning muralist, illustrator,
painter, cartoonist, teacher and sometimes
evangelist, whose recent work at Kenmore
Square’s Fourth Wall Project was called “almost
secretly gorgeous and politically daring” by The
Boston Globe, seems to be everywhere.
An introduction: “And Then There Were None,”
from his November 2009 solo Carroll & Sons
exhibition, “Lookum Here,” featuring fictional
characters playing on vintage “Indians” and
buffalo animations and cartoons, was featured in
lowbrow bible Juxtapoz Magazine. His dark comic
painting “Alarums!!” was featured in the Artadia
Boston at the Mills Gallery at Boston Center for
the Arts in April. Then Boston Phoenix readers
voted him Best Visual Artist.
Better.
He then unveiled “Conmocion,” a 24-foot mural
celebrating cultural diversity within the Latin
American community in East Boston. Through
visual symbols and vibrant brush strokes of acrylic
and latex house paint, Gonzalez explores the
physical and mental struggle many immigrants
face as they begin to grow accustomed to a new
way of life.
Organized by the new Boston Art Commission,
“Conmocion” will double in size to 48 feet, the
largest piece Gonzalez has ever created, and be on view on Sumner Street between Bremen and
Orleans Streets. Painted on plywood pieces while
“in my pajamas on my balcony,” he said, the mural
shows Latin American iconic images — a rooster,
burrito, Mariachi singers. He adds, “it welcomes ‘new'
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