Carlos Encinas, Vietnam Climax, acrylics on wood panel 38" x 46", 2018. Pop culture political commentary on Vietnam War, using Jane Fonda from the Hollywood movie  Barbarella and Life magazine. 

Carlos Encinas, Twinkle Of The Eye, acrylics on wood panel, 34" x 39", 2020. The narrative about my parents destined to marry. My father was a Mexican immigrant. 

Carlos Encinas, Tonatzin Sin Verguenza, acrylics on aluminum panel, 31" x 40"Pop art religious idol. Commentary on the Aztec origin of La Virgen De Guadalupe. 

Carlos Encinas, Tacos Of Eden, acrylics on aluminum panel, 38" x 48", 2020. Pop culture/political illegal immigration commentary using Jan Brueghel the  Elder’s painting of Adam and Eve as a backdrop. 

Carlos Encinas, Rickenbacker, acrylics on aluminum panel, 34" x 42", 2018. Pop culture commentary featuring classical figures, Courtney Love, Sid  Vicious, and part of La Virgen De Guadalupe. 

Carlos Encinas, Rest On the Flight To Arizona, acrylics on aluminum panel 32" x 40", 2018. Pop culture commentary on a 1510 painting titled Rest  On Flight Into Egypt by Gerard David with pop artist Madonna overlayed. 

Carlos Encinas, Rancheros, acrylics on wood panel, 27" x 43", 2021. Portraiture depicting members of my father’s side of the family who were rancheros  (ranch people) here in Southern Arizona. 

Carlos Encinas, No Real Mexicans, acrylics on wood panel, 39" x 48", 2021. Commentary on Hollywood westerns filmed at Old Tucson movie studio in the Arizona Sonoran Desert. In the 1952 Hollywood movie VIVA ZAPATA!  Marlon Brando, not a Mexican, played Emiliano Zapata.

Carlos Encinas, Modern Mexican Marriage, acrylics on wood panel 32" x 40", 2020: acrylics on wood panel. A partial depiction of my childhood which was spent in a modern mid-century, post-war, tract home, (my parents were up-and-coming middle class yet very Mexican and their modern new house and neighborhood were way out of the boundaries of our former traditional  “barrio” adobe home).  

MId -century Assimilations, 32” x 43”, Acrylic on wood panel. A partial depiction of my childhood which was spent in a modern mid century, post-war, tract home, (my parents were up-and-coming middle class yet very Mexican and their modern new house and neighborhood were way out of the boundaries of our former traditional  “barrio” adobe home).  

Los Panchos 2018, 30” x 40” acrylics on wood panel. Political and cultural commentary about Hollywood depictions of Mexican  Revolutionary Pancho Villa as portrayed by various American, and non-Mexican actors, and pop characters. 

Joker 2019, 32”x42”, acrylics on wood panel. Political and pop-cultural commentary on an imaginary no man’s land between the US and  Mexican border where there’s a crossover of cultural influences. 

Carlos Encinas is best known for his public art, a picture book, murals, digital art prints, and paintings displayed in Tucson, Phoenix, and various other locations in the USA. He has worked in a variety of mediums throughout his many years of making art: drawing, painting, illustration, wood, ceramic, steel sculpture, computer art, and furniture construction. He has degrees from the University of Arizona in education and art. He worked as an educator for 30 years. He has worked with multiple artistic themes such as Chicano art, pop art, southwestern art, political art, children’s illustration, and abstract art. His primary influences have been pop artists, Mexican muralists, and German Weimar.

My current artwork is inspired by the pop culture of movies, television, politics, historical figures, and events. I am interested in creating dialogue about what in pop culture is familiar to other people and how this familiarity affected people’s lives and relates to current times, and events. My paintings are produced by images found on the internet that have been manipulated, processed, and recomposed into new compositions on my computer using Photoshop. These compositions are then projected from my computer onto the painting surface, drawn out in pencil, and then hand-painted. I think of these as similar to mash-up or hip-hop music with internet images as visual (instead of musical) samples deconstructed and then reconstructed into new art forms. I consider these hand-painted computer prints.

I have been an artist all my life. I realized I was an artist when I was nine  years old. I have done many forms of art throughout my 70 years of  existence. My newest art are paintings inspired by politics, pop/internet/ computer culture, personal experiences and history. I develop my ideas on  my computer primarily using Adobe Photoshop and then transfer those  ideas to a wooden canvas to be hand painted.

Delacroix meets Bieb and Selena 44”x 48”, acrylics on aluminum panel. A play, cultural and political commentary on  Eugene Delacroix’s painting Liberty Leading the People with Justin Bieber and Selena and the Virgen De Guadalupe. 

Arivaca Exvoto 27x38 acrylics on aluminum panel 20” x 20”. A play on traditional Mexican ex-votos paying homage to Saint Toribio Romo a saint who overlooks immigrant travelers. A narrative about a group of illegal immigrants crossing the desert and getting help from an American citizen do-gooder who delivers water and food to the immigrant group. 

Bentons’s Immigrants is a play on part of Thomas Hart Benton’s America Today mural. A depiction of immigrant Mexican workers doing all the things they do to support our lifestyles and economy here in the USA. 

Fragile II 2019, 32x42 inches, acrylics on wood panel 2019. An homage to immigrants coming to America. The screen in the middle is what immigrants see and the reality of the Statue of Liberty symbolic of the current state of America is on the other side.