Oswaldo Guayasim's Lack Of Reasoning

‘Fear is an idea-crippling, success-stalling inhibitor inflicted only by yourself': Stephanie Melish, a motivational speaker and sales barista, effectively expressing the entire basis of fear. As an emotion, fear is essentially invisible, but it has the power to manifest into something physical, but what is the reasoning for this?Perhaps the reasoning is science, a change in metabolic and organ functions, or the individuals own mindset, their personal experiences and memory? Tense muscles, and widened eyes are some of common responses of defence to fear in the human race. However, as much as there was a full understanding into why we respond in this way to immediate danger, there is still a lack of reasoning into why a person becomes so confined

Due to his mixed racial heritage, racism and discrimination became common parts of his life growing up, along with physical abuse from his distant Father. Not only that, at the age of twelve, he lost one of his closest friends in the 4 day civil war of Ecuador (in 1932). These personal losses and experiences became major influences in his artworks around the portrayal of fear. Guayasamím also spent months travelling around Latin America witnessing the ravages of war and the poverty that became a consequence of this. This experience became a key fear of Guayasamím, and his desire for peace and justice was ignited, becoming another major theme in his artworks along with fear. Guayasamím focused on quite cartoon-like designs, often using block colours with harsh dark lines and a black background to his portraits, this made features and expressions stand out, emphasising the sheer panic in reaction to fear. An example of this is ‘Las manos del terror,’ translated as ‘Hand of terror.’(Fig 5) Interesting as Guayasamím is expressing that these hands are a physical embodiment of terror itself, much like a physical embodiment of fear. The pale colours and slim features of the hand indicate the loss of life force as fear takes over the body. Guayasamím also composed the piece with care and thought, the positioning of the hands appears as if they are begging, expressing the poverty stricken towns Guayasamím visited. His pieces also are very successful when etched, the intense marks draw the attention to Guayasamím’s recognisable features and overall style, this also further amplifies expressions of the portraits and increases their appearance of fear, bringing it further to life. As a viewer, we can see how much this fear has power and influence over Guayasamím and his works. However, commonly