“Family Album” – A Contemporary Painting Project

“Family Album” – A Contemporary Painting Project

Initiated in 1997, this project consists of large-scale paintings that re-signify family photographic archives, engaging with a collective memory interrupted by the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. Through the lens of a personal album, this series of oil paintings reflects on how a Mexican middle-class family in the 1970s and 1980s was shaped by the visual records of everyday life—school, vacations, leisure time, games, and family gatherings.

At the same time, the paintings introduce an existential dimension that both complements and distorts the perceived truth of the original photographs—most of which were Polaroids—transforming them into works of art with renewed scale and meaning. The approach moves closer to realistic or expressionist painting rather than photorealism.

For me, it was essential to recover that overlooked past which profoundly affected thousands of families in Mexico City after the 1985 earthquake, particularly in Tlatelolco, where I was living at the time.