NYAB Event - Stefano Alcantara “Waqayñan”

Stefano Alcantara “Waqayñan”

Last Rites Gallery

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Last Rites Gallery presents Waqayñan, new work by Stefano Alcantara, in what will be his first solo show at the gallery. Waqayñan will include 12 oil paintings and is an extremely personal body of work for Alcantara. Waqayñan translates to “a difficult and dangerous road” in Quechua, the language of the Incas. Alcantara who is part Inca, uses Waqayñan to title his paintings as a reflection and revisit of his journey through life and the lessons he has picked up along the way. They also serve to remind us that the whole world and all of its creatures are our home.

Alcantara was born and raised in Peru in the 1980s and 1990s during a time of extreme turbulence and bloodshed due to terrorist-communist guerilla warfare. In an attempt to keep him safe, Alcantara’s family moved far outside the city where this internal conflict was most active, providing him a childhood they hoped to be out of harm’s way. Despite this, the sound of bombs going off in the distance and perpetual power outages still shaped his childhood. As he came of age, he found inspiration from his grandfather, artist Jose Alcantara la Torre and recognized his own passion for creating art. At 32, Alcantara left his home country for the United States with the hope and optimism of the often thought of “land of opportunity”. Although Alcantara has been able to pursue his dream with success, it came at a price coupled with much hardship and strife. Living and working in New York City has given Alcantara much inspiration and opportunity but at the same time, kept him from his family and roots. The city has also exposed him to many of life’s adversities and the wickedness of mankind. Themes of greed, injustice and obsoleteness are present along with one’s reaction to such, in conditions such as loneliness, death, and the constant fight between good and evil. Ironically, such experiences are found all over the world and their exposure inevitable.

Some paintings in Waqayñan focus on a crucial moment in Alcantara’s life. Despite their specificity, they are experiences and memories extremely relatable to all of us. A young Alcantara gazes upward towards a brighter future in Playground, yet he stands before a bleak sky and a graveyard of damaged electrical transmission towers. Other work in this series use pivotal figures he has encountered throughout his life that have served as messengers of wisdom. Wise depicts an elderly man Alcantara met when he was recently able to return to Peru for the first time in years. The expressive face full of wrinkles and evocative eyes tells a tale of a seasoned life coupled with the knowledge and maturity only one of experience and age can harbor. Originally from France, this older man immigrated to Peru; Like Alcantara he has more than one home.

Paintings such as NYght Life, Cursed and Enlightened are metaphors used to describe poignant emotions and struggles one bears in life. NYght Life portrays a lone woman walking down the streets of Manhattan to express the solitude one can feel, no matter how many people may surround him or her. Cursed and Enlightened represents a recent event in which a gull and a crow attacked the two peace doves released by the Pope at the Vatican, and for Alcantara, symbolize the eternal battle between good and evil.

Alcantara uses paintings as a visual tool to share with others, his perspectives from life and its valuable lessons. With every stroke and its subsequent emotion, he contemplates his past and present with a more learned and habituated perspective. His focused choice of universal themes and a strong notion of a shared world create a sense of kinship and common ground that remind us that we are not alone.

Stéfano Alcántara was born and raised in Lima, Peru. As a child, Stéfano found inspiration in the world of comic books. His education began with a degree in Graphic Design at the Peruvian Institute of Advertising. During his academic career, he also took painting classes and became increasingly fascinated with art. Through his experiences in both school and life, Stefano’s love for drawing translated in various media, including airbrushing, color pencils, charcoal, acrylics and oil. At the age of eighteen, he was introduced to the world of tattooing when he found a tattoo magazine, the first he ever saw, at a flea market in Peru. From that point forward, Stéfano’s zeal for art and tattoos evolved into both a passion and career; He opened his own shop, Stefano´s Tattoo Studio, in 1999, in Lima, Peru, where it is still in business today.