Latin America Painter and Lover
When Uruguayan Tony Brun talks about Latin America and his work, he does not even feel that he gets wet in the rain. His passion is strong and he knows his theme. "My painting is my point of view about reality. It is not a copy, it is my point of view, which in the end, is nothing more than the view of a point, " he says.
Including symbolic and subjective details, he painted a woman carrying her baby on her back in her
mantle, a man carrying his small, orphaned adopted son, two girls, one carrying
a little brother on her back, and a grandmother weaving her story in colors on
her loom, among other works.
He is self-taught, has not studied formally any technique, and his
luminous colors are pure inspiration. Brun works for an NGO related to agro
ecology, peace and human rights. This allows him to travel, meet people, places
and cultures; and take photos of the deep realities of Latin America. Some of
the images of those photos, which produce very deep feelings, extend them in
oils with soft brush strokes.
His places his work in
social realism, "because it is a look at the social reality of the least
favored and the most excluded." About his passion, says the artist,
"Latin America is a reserve of dignity and beauty, which of course, is not
the dignity of the uniformed nor the beauty of the miss universe. I want to
capture and tell of that dignity and beauty, the dignity and beauty that, in
our America - the one from below, the one from the south, the poor America - still
exists and resists for centuries. "
He began to take
interest in "the things of life, of the people, of the people below"
when he was 9 years old. He looked at the full-color pages of his father's
socialist magazines. He liked the drawing and the colors of those Russian
painters. "Then I saw the picture of Goya, The Third of May 1808. I
was struck by the raw and real image. I still look at pictures of that
painting, and every time I do, it seems that they are still shooting ... "
In his student years he painted "Mother with Fear" on the
occasion of the anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; "Life and
Death", inspired by the book The Citadel by J. Cronin; and "Children
of the Street", inspired by his own childhood. Of these works he does not
have photos because he considered unnecessary to photograph them. He was busy
participating in continental meetings of Christian socialist youths, such as
Huampani-Peru, in 1981. He was experiencing his first contacts with Latin
American social reality, while he was learning Philosophy and Liberation
Theology and worked as a religious in popular communities inspired by Christian
socialism.
He admires Francisco de
Goya especially for painting the reality and consequences of the war of
independence in Spain. He also admires Antonio Berni and Diego Rivera as
representatives of Latin American social realism.
His wife is American
and because he loves her he has come to live in this country. He has five children, lives in Washington DC, and says his identity is Latin American.
Thanks Tony for sharing
your passion with the world!
For details about his paintings see the following video:
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