El Supremo (from the "Serie Paraguay"), Carlos Colombino

El Supremo is a wood xylo-painting created by Paraguayan artist Carlos Colombino. It contains an air of sadness and as you look closer at the piece, you begin to see details you never saw before. El Supremo is a beautiful piece of artwork with the most peculiar of materials used to create it. El Supremo is a wood xylo-painting, an incredible style of art that Carlos Colombino developed himself. He achieved this style of art by carving into a plank of wood to create different levels and divots. He then used ink or paint to lightly cover the surface which makes the grain of the wood very prominent. Aside from a few classes in France and Spain, Carlos is a primarily self-taught artist. Born in 1937, Colombino had had his first exhibition by the age of 19. As he got older he began to study architecture and you can begin to see the architectural influence in some of his pieces. Following his difficult period of artist block that lasted four years, the architecture really exploded in his work. All the anxiety and angst that had built up inside finally escaped him during this period in his life. After finally finding himself, Carlos began his beautiful xylo-painting again. El Supremo depicts a rock of some sort with a man’s head perched on top. The political turbulence in his home country of Paraguay most likely influenced this tired piece of work. When Colombino created this piece, he might have felt slightly troubled about the politics and government in his country. They had supposedly moved into a time of democracy, but had they really escaped their dictator? If you look closely you can see that the head at the top of the rock does not have a mouth. I might interpret this as Carlos’s feelings in that he and his fellow Paraguayans are still not really heard by their country. The man in the rock appears to be tied down by the ropes surrounding him. It is early in the morning and the sun is starting to rise behind the rock. The man is beginning to wake up and appears very tired. The ropes might be holding him down but it also looks like they are stitching him together and holding him in one piece. The man in the rock wishes he could be free of the ropes, but is imprisoned by them. The ropes have become a part of him and he, a part of the ropes. He is unfinished and forced to stay in this pathetic form. I feel so sorry for this poor man. While I am free and whole, he is trapped and crumbling. He is not as strong as rock, he is as brittle as wood.