THE POSTER beta: Octavio Ocampo's Metamorphosis

Octavio Ocampo's Metamorphosis

Octavio Ocampo was born on February 28th, 1943 in Celaya, Guanajuato, Mexico. He grew up in a family of designers, and studied art from early childhood. At art school, Ocampo constructed papier mache(what's this?) figures for floats, altars, and ornaments that were used during carnival parades and other festivals. In high school, Ocampo painted murals for the High School and the City Hall of Celaya. Ruth Riviera, daughter of artist Diego Rivera and María Luisa Mendoza encouraged him to attend the School of Painting and Sculpture of the National Fine Art Institute.

Octavio Ocampo is now one of the most prolific Mexican artists.

Ocampo is known for several works in his sometimes wryly sardonic, sometimes evocative paintings in which detailed images are intrincately woven together to create larger images -the optical illusions fading back and stepping forward as you study the pieces, notice the details, and finally recognize the large scale intention. This is what Octavio Ocampo terms his 'metamorphic' style.

The Visions Fine Art Gallery in Sedona, Arizona represents Octavio Ocampo in the United States.

Several collections in Mexico contain his work, and individual works have been made for President Jimmy Carter (commissioned by President López Portillo and was presented as a gift from the United Mexican States), Jane Fonda, Cher (for the front and back covers of one of her albums) and César Chavez.

Octavio Ocampo currently lives and works in Tepoztlán, in the mountainous region southwest of Mexico City which he considers to be 'one of the most magical places on Earth'.

Below there is some of his artwork:

Sunlight Kiss

How to download the images: If you feel just like me, that the images are too small to be fully appreciated you can download them to you computer. Most of them are available in a much larger size; just click on the image you want (not right-click) and in the resulting page right-click the image and then select "Save Image As..."