Art - Rikki Tarascas

Rikki Tarascas holds up a painting to hang in Laporte’s, where they’re putting on an exhibition of his work. It’s an abstract portrait, very colourful. Other paintings are already up. All abstract, all colourful, all full of detail. “Picasso goes to the Carribean?” I muster. “Picasso goes to Latin America, actually,” he replies. “Picasso goes slightly Aztec.” I’ve hit a nail near the head, and it leads to an interesting story. “A lot of my work plays on my Mexican-ness,” he continues. “Fifteen years back I went to Mexico to find my father, with very few leads as to where he might be. I’d never met him. After eight days I got a lead, after three weeks I was on his trail. And then I found him. It turned out that my roots weren’t from the Spanish invaders of Mexico, as I’d assumed, but from the indigenous Indians. This has been influential in my work.”

His other roots are British and French, and you can see influences from both sides of the Atlantic in his paintings, which are oils and acrylic on canvas. “Basquiat is an influence,” he says. “And Jackson Pollock, and Frida Kahlo. And certain graffiti artists. I’ve sprayed graffiti in my time, though years ago.” But what about from our side of the Atlantic? “Picasso, obviously. Picasso has influenced all the art schools in England, France and Spain.” He nips out to his car, parked outside (a persistent warden has been on his case, but he seems to have shaken him off), and comes back with a small canvas. “I do portraits, as well,” he says. “This one’s a self-portrait. I was obviously going through a Van Gogh phase when I painted it. Though at the time I was more likely to cut someone else’s ear off than my own.”