Guillermo Munro

Guillermo Munro was raised in a small fishing village, in the Sea of Cortez or Gulf of California, called Puerto Peñasco in Sonora, Mexico.  But now most beaches are not accessible because of touristic developments.

His father's family line can be traced to Ireland and his mother's to Italy, but Guillermo is very mixed: Spanish, French, and some Yaqui and Pima Indian.



So when did you move to Chicago?

I moved to Chicago from Seattle in September of 2005.  I really like Seattle it was my second time living there, I wanted to stay longer but I was offered a position here in Chicago and I liked the project here, plus the city is amazing. I love all the neighborhoods and people are very friendly, and bars are everywhere so that is always good especially in the winter here you need to walk a block and then Hide in a bar drinking some whisky to get your fluids going.

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Why do you choose to paint on cardboard?

Well there are various reasons, but I was kind of feeling bad about all the pollution, the destruction of the forests and all. And also because Dallas, Texas did not have a recycling program. It made me feel so guilty about throwing away stuff. So I thought about giving a tree that was in a beautiful forest and housed maybe birds, chipmunks a new life, I wanted to give some kind homage to something that at one point was an incredible living entity and that supported many forms of life. I think that Dallas in many ways was too materialistic and I recoiled in to trying to be otherwise.

But seriously, your paintings have a Dia de los Muertos sort of feeling to them.  How much does your

You know, I never think about it when I paint but people have told me that, in several occasions, I cannot say that I do it consciously because I don't. When I was at a show in Barcelona one of the guys said, “Yeah, they are very Mexican but they have a very border US L.A. kind of influence.” I do believe I am made of everything I have seen and lived and I am influenced by the people I meet.  I try to

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become a little like everybody I meet, take a piece from them and stick it into my being. And I hope that some of me rubs off to other people. So most of my life has been in Northern Mexico and cities in the US along the border. L.A., San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson. But at one point in1998 I went to Guadalajara, Mexico and lived there for about 3 years. It was my first experience with the Dia de los Muertos.  I went to Michoacan, had a very incredible and beautiful experience.  We were stranded on the tiny little island of Yunuen where we  drank come kind of local liquor called charanda, and heard people sing in Tarasco. It was kind of like dream.

And the difference between painting, illustration, and graphics is...

Well painting is my passion, is what transmits more what I am, my worries, my call to justice, my admiration of beauty and love.  Illustration is the vehicle for me to survive, working for newspapers and magazines more commercial but I still try to inflict some kind of feeling in every illustration I do. Graphics is more like visual journalism.

What are you working on these days?

I am doing a series of environmental-global warming paintings, I am working on cardboard, wood that I have found, and old LP record covers they are very interesting. Also a series of a sleeping woman just dreaming and sleeping and sleeping away.  I am designing a magazine that deals with the stories of the founding members of the little town where I grew up. I am designing two books, working for this paper in Finland and also this magazine in France. I want to do some printing on shirts and whatever I can wear.

In two words, your thoughts on this whole immigrant hubbub:

Well I understand that a country should protect its borders, but I do not get the deal of making people in to criminals. they are hard working people that are fleeing extreme poverty.
While working at a paper in Tucson, Arizona I got to see the bodies of people who had died in the desert.  They where basically like these zombies you see in the movies, others were just bones... Then you look in their wallet, and see their pictures of where they came from, pictures of their children… it breaks you. I have traveled through most of Mexico and I have seen extreme poverty, it sucks, it hurts, and you understand why we do these things, why you would venture in to this desert.

Website

http://gmunro.com/

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