Orange: Welcome to the Bunny House - Raul Baltazar

Chapman University’s Guggenheim Gallery is thrilled to present Welcome to the Bunny House, an exhibition of paintings by Los Angeles-based artist Raul Baltazar.  The exhibition title, Welcome to the Bunny House, references Baltazar’s former Echo Park home, where he lived from 2008 until 2021. This location was a cultural hub for public art projects, performances, rehearsals, filming sessions, and barbecues.

Baltazar’s singular acrylic paintings on raw canvas are characterized by his swift and intensely energetic draftsmanship, which gives rise to images charged with a multitude of references, quotations, and layered meanings. As in his public and social practice, the themes of his paintings center around the artist’s immediate life experiences and personal history as part of the history of the Americas. His subjects range from the exploration of disrupted lineages and the genocide of millions of indigenous people to the syncretism of Catholicism, belief systems, and masculinity. He further addresses the history of painting, the significance of domestic space, the dynamics of civil unrest, environmental decline, and the nature of systemic corruption and power misuse.