Framed by a background of fire set against a blackish blue sky, a group of apes gamely rows a log through roiling water. Hanging on to an ax embedded in the wood, the leader is absorbed in his task while his second in command looks squarely at the viewer. As for the rest, they are foot soldiers in transport.
Julio Labra
All together, this intriguing painted scenario titled “Simian Pride” conveys a vague sense of deja vu, but of what exactly?
Julio Labra, the painting’s creator has the answer, “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” with the log standing in for the boat and fire a metaphor for the flag.
The Simians, he explained, serve as emotional representatives of humans and the group signifies the interdependence of family and human connection. As for the ax, here it stands for stability and human desire to hold on to principles and values.
The painting is one of several by Labra, currently on view at Raw Salt, an offshoot of the Salt Fine Art Gallery in Laguna Beach. Many are based on mythology or biblical lore, including the great flood and Noah’s Ark as refuge to human and animal couples. “We all know about Noah’s intentions, but then I started to wonder about all the rest that did not make it into the two by two,” he said.
In that vein, “Oasis,” with its swimming bull forming an island refuge to countless birds, brings to mind an impromptu ark. With thousands more on the horizon, the painting raises the question whether the bull can stay afloat under the load.
While Labra does not specifically make contemporary inferences, one can easily draw parallels. “It’s a modern metaphor for everyone trying to stay afloat, to survive,” he said. “I like the idea here of the animals weighing almost nothing alone can cause a lot of consternation in great numbers.”
At age 26, he is part of an international group of young/emerging artists that the gallery regularly exhibits and represents. The son of a Mexican father and an American mother, he was born in Idaho and moved around the Midwest with his family. “There wasn’t a group I fit easily into, so drawing and painting became a refuge. That and football,” he recalled.
Art prevailed and he pursued an undergraduate degree in illustration from the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 2012. “College was a new idea, let alone art, but my family was supportive with me being the first to go. Other than that, it would have been the Marine Corps,” he said.
While at the Academy, he traveled to Florence, Italy, and Belize, enamored by Caravaggio’s depictions of the human condition and intrigued by Mayan ruins in turn. His artistic observations, as well as a nudge from friends, motivated him to move to California and pursue a master’s in fine arts from the Laguna College of Art and Design.
The graduate degree set him on track as an artist though he clung to the idea of joining the Navy or Coast Guard until LCAD Professor F. Scott Hess took him under his wing. Hess, a painter renowned for paintings filled to capacity with stories and social commentary, guided Labra in honing his skills along those lines.
Labra’s noteworthy mastery of representational drawing progressed at a fast clip. “During his first semester, Julio had tons of imaginary ideas, but did not know what to do with all his talents,” recalls Hess. “Julio turned out to be a sponge. It’s rare for a teacher to watch a student absorb everything. Even his smaller paintings now have a sense of grandiosity, and the stories they tell are wide open, directing one to think.”
Hess teaches a class based on mythology, symbolism and narrative, among others.
“Scott turned things around for me,” acknowledges Labra. “He convinced me to be an artist and now I am staying that way.”
Labra describes his latest series of paintings, almost all involving moving water in some form, as representations of struggles while finding his place in California. He put himself through school as a museum guard at the Laguna Art Museum, where some may remember him with the ever-present sketchbook tucked into a pocket, acting as an impromptu docent. He also installed art at Santa Ana College and taught private art lessons. Money was always tight, involving sharing a Garden Grove apartment with too many roommates, riding a bicycle to school and even camping near a Laguna Canyon cave. The latter more for meditational and inspirational purposes, but he stuck it out through six months in 2013 and winter weather, writing poetry and reading, perhaps channeling Henry Thoreau. As he says, “the only constant is change.”
Currently he teaches figure, life and perspective drawing and fundamentals of painting at LCAD and Santa Ana College and maintains a studio in Santa Ana’s Santora Building.
“Inspiration is coming from finding my place, defining the past and finding deeper meaning in what I find intriguing in the world and the stories I tell,” he said. “I may have faced hardships, but I never want to feel that I made it.”
Raw Salt Gallery is exhibiting “Simian Pride” by artist Julio Labra, who considers himself a storyteller.
Read the original article HERE | See more of Julio’s work HERE