Art Beyond Reason (video)

Art by Octavio Ocampo, RasMarley/Flickr.com (photographs); Wisdom Quarterly

"Buddha" by Ocatvio Ocampo

  

"Woman and Mountains Shiva"

The artist Octavio Ocampo was born in Celaya, Guanajuato, Mexico. He studied art from early childhood. In high school, Ocampo painted murals for the Preparatory School and the City Hall of Celaya. 

  

Ruth Rivera, daughter of artist and muralist Diego Rivera, and Maria Luisa Mendoza encouraged him to attend the School of Painting and Sculpture of the National Fine Art Institute. Later in art school, he constructed papier mache figures for floats, altars, and ornaments used in carnival parades and festivals.

  
Ocampo's talents are not limited to painting and sculpture; they also extend to acting and dancing. At the Art Institute of San Francisco, he studied all of these disciplines then pursued both a film and theater career. But in 1976 he began to devote himself solely to painting and sculpture. Octavio Ocampo is one of Mexico's most prolific artists.
  
He now works primarily in the metamorphic style -- using a technique of superimposing and juxtaposing realistic and figurative details within the images he creates.
 

   
Metamorphic Style
Ocampo is known for several famous works in his sometimes wryly sardonic, sometimes evocative paintings.
  
Detailed images are intricately woven together to create larger images. The optical illusions fade back and pop forward as one studies the pieces, notices the details, and finally recognizes the large scale intention. This is what he terms "metamorphic."
  
The Visions Fine Art Gallery in Sedona, Arizona, represents Octavio Ocampo in the US.
  
Several collections in Mexico contain his work, and individual works of his have been commissioned for Pres. Jimmy Carter (as a gift from Pres. José López Portillo of Mexico), Jane Fonda, Cher (for the front and back covers of her "Heart of Stone" album), and César Chávez.