Sugar Rush
Oil on Canvas, 72” x 108″
This series of work tells the story of contemporary children who find extreme pleasure in high-technology products in a similar way previous generations of children found pleasure in playing with their toys. For this series, the artist did extensive research analyzing different authors, from different times in history that tried to explain the pleasure children find in using certain objects. For example, Karl Marx describes in Capital of 1848 patterns of consumer capitalism and Jacques Lacan uses psychoanalysis to describe commodity fetishism. In this case, a tablet or a cellphone is a commodity that creates an addiction in children that is similar to fetishize images. This most recent body of work was created as a message for the need to identify an alarming behavior in our youth after becoming addicted to technology, especially to mobiles and tablets.
Guajardo’s work is always influenced by major players in universal art history. For this series, the artist got influenced by Botticelli, Caravaggio, Hendrick ter Brugghen, and Tiepolo.