With Inside Out, William Osorio has decided to portray his life. The one that his restless eyes perceive and guard in that special place, untouched by many, where emotion and analysis unite. On observing his pieces at a casual glance, we could speak of a renovated or rescaled expressionism. Yet with him, I’d rather think of a visceral neo-expressionism.

He does not pretend to create portraiture, although he does. And he achieves this in a manner that cannot be matched by a traditional photographer. His pieces are portraits and, concurrently, are not portraits. I would say that we are faced with discoveries, doubts, fears, pains, and illusions. Emotions in the form of portraits, one step away from the post-vanguard. Within the pursuit of his vision, he is no stranger to those sempiternal agitations that live in the great artists. Yet his goal, aviating through the tightrope of figurative perspicuity and of abstract discourse, is to take yet another step forward. And he attains it.

His world is his painting and his painting is his world. A very particular portraitist of existence. He opens his lens like an immense funnel to recount stories. Troubadour of images. In his work we find the bedazzlement of an island kinsman faced with the visual onslaught of extraordinary conurbations, the grandfatherly epic that is the history of his island, the sapient tenderness of the fiancée, the family victories, the downfall of the heroes that he never met, desire and terror, love and destiny, his subconscious palavering with the paintbrush, with the tips of his fingers, with his fists. And in all of them, his eyes, watching them, watching himself.

In this series, he embarks on an exploration not only of his identity but rather of a labyrinth of identities. “Human behavior and the sociocultural issues that surround me influence my work.”, he has asserted. He wants to observe, like a singular guardian of emotive elements, human beings as much in their nervous collectivity as in their most traversed solitudes. Consequently, he has recognized feeling influenced at once by Francis Bacon, Gerhard Richter, Eric Fischl, Jenny Saville, and Adrian Ghenie.

He seeks the multispectral countenance that constitutes the human being. A perhaps impossible adventure. Yet doubtless, one of the most human adventures. This is why he feels so comfortable working with canvases of large dimension, wherein he applies, with more liberty than custom, corpulent layers of paint, thus creating forms and textures wherein the volume at once becomes a sculptural element.

Those who open themselves to his pieces will be able to contemplate the intense dialog between the mind of the creator and his emotions. And those who acquire them, those privileged to contemplate them throughout diverse instances of life, beyond enjoying the skill and imagination of the artist, will be able to corroborate that place where William Osorio’s art is born, his created universes and those still left to be created.

Luis Leonel León
Excerpt from the catalog essay,
“Inside William Osorio, or the art of portraying the impossible,”
English Text Translation by Gined Vitali Ganem
WILLIAM OSORIO, INSIDE OUT