Raul Guerrero
Raymond Chandler at the Whaling Bar, 2018
1162 Prospect Street
Raul Guerrero's mural, Raymond Chandler at the Whaling Bar, is emblematic of a time and place in La Jolla's rich history. Inspired by Raymond Chandler's final novel Playback, Guerrero whimsically depicts La Valencia Hotel's iconic Whaling Bar. On display just a half a block from the famous hotel, it's a fitting homage to the author and the era. Playback was set in the La Jolla under the fictional guise of the small seaside town called Esmerelda as can be seen in the trail of smoke drifting from Chandler’s pipe. Bold and painterly, the artist explores the moody atmosphere of the bar and the bar goers suggestive of the tantalizing narrative that is about to unfold. Beginning in 1999, Guerrero began a series of paintings about notable bars where artists were known to repose with the muses who communed with them. This ongoing theme in his prior work was a fated fit for his mural.
Raul Guerrero conceptualizes his position as a Mexican-American artist through a range of media including film, sculpture, installation, and photography. Guerrero, born in 1945, grew up in National City, California. He received his BFA from Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, and then went on to study architecture and urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. Growing up in such close proximity to the border with Mexico, Guerrero was highly influenced by his early experience with cultural and ethnic plurality.
Somewhere between indigenous Mexican crafts and the emerging local subcultures of Southern California, Guerrero is inspired by a number of different forms of artistic expression. More recently, he has incorporated painterly practices into his work as a series-based exploration of diverse ethnographic and historical mythologies. He has been the recipient of an NEA Photography Fellowship and the San Diego Art Prize. Guerrero has had solo exhibitions at the San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco; the Long Beach Museum of Art, California; the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, La Jolla, California; and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. Guerrero lives and works in San Diego, California.
15' 6" x 20' 6"
Wall Sponsors: Lauren and Cindy Bloch
Photos by Philipp Scholz Rittermann