A closer look
Exhibit honors San Luis artist’s 20-year career
SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO, Son. – Enoc Palafox has spent decades depicting the human body.
“I find the human body fascinating to draw and to paint,” said San Luis, Ariz., artist. “It’s like painting a landscape, because you encounter so many shades and details. I’m passionate about painting human bodies because you discover that the work becomes more natural and realistic each time.”
Palafox portrays the human form even in the post-life state in a new exhibit in San Luis Rio Colorado “Cuerpos, Caras y Calaveras” (“Bodies, Faces and Skulls”).
The exhibit, on display the Mexican border city’s Regional Museum for the next several months, brings together nearly 40 oil and watercolor paintings, and illustrations Palafox has spent nearly two decades creating.
The exhibition depicts the human form in many representations, from a portrait of a elderly beshawled woman seated in repose, to the depiction of a boy who, in a tender moment, clasps the cheeks of a man who is presumably his father, to slice-of-life illustrations of Mexico’s indigenous people.
And as the exhibition’s title implies, Palafox also portrays the afterlife in an exhibit that includes skeletal portraits reminiscent of Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebrations every Nov. 1 and 2. There is, for example, a grinning skeleton, dressed in vivid red and blue and donning a floral hat.
“The theme of skulls is very interesting to me, because in our culture they also portray happiness,” said Palafox, a native of San Luis Rio Colorado. “You will never see a sad one. Besides that, they show that death is not to be feared but in fact celebrated.”
Palafox’s exhibition, unveiled recently part of the celebration of International Museum Day, can be seen Mondays through Saturdays at the Regional Museum (Museo Regional), located at 8th Street and Nuevo Leon Avenue in San Luis Rio Colorado.
His work is paired at the museum with “Etnias de Sonora,” an exposition showcasing the art, cultures and traditions of Mexican state’s indigenous peoples, among the Series, Yaquis, Mayos, and with a permanent exhibition of the Cocopah, whose tribe straddles the border between Yuma County and Sonora.
“For me this offers a great opportunity to present myself and make myself known (as an artist), Palafox said. “I am very happy and grateful for this opportunity.”
Palafox previously has shown his work at Sonora State University, in the Cesar Chavez Cultural Center in San Luis Ariz., in the Arizona border city’s library, as well as in shows in downtown Yuma.
He has had a passion for art going back to his childhood, he said in a 2017 interview.
“I began drawing as a child. We lived on a farm in San Luis Rio Colorado, and for me having pencils and a notebook to draw in was a treasure. And if I didn’t have a notebook, I did it on any piece of cardboard or paper.”
Studying art in his teens, he later put aside his artistic aspirations temporarily while living and working in California as a barber. Now 73, he is pursuing his passion again.