Esteban Cabeza de Baca's Time Travels | Art21 "New York Close Up"

(pensive music)
(wind whistles)

- [Esteban] The way that
my paintings develop

is in a very intuitive
approach of what I feel,

what I respond to, but also
searching for who I am.

Growing up along the border

and not being connected
to a lot of my heritage,

I have had to find it on my own.

The process of art as being
like a healing gesture

of connecting to these histories,

but then also reconnecting my
relationship back to the land

and to learning these histories
before we lose them to time.

(clock ticks)
(pensive music continues)

(wind whistles)

(water trickles)

The way my process works
is based on the concept

of a tesseract, where you
have four different layers

or four different dimensions inside of it.

First, I start out by dyeing
the canvas with cochineal.

Cochineal dye operates as
almost like an astral plane

that looks similar to the
way physicists map space.

These spiral forms in my
paintings are about solstices.

Indigenous societies had the capability

of modeling time without
industrial technology,

and then building up the next image

where I'm thinking about
pre-colonial histories

and what advanced structures predate 1492.

The third layer involves
observational painting

that I do on site.

- Yeah, that's looking pretty good.

- [Esteban] Heidi's been
my partner for 10 years.

I'm asking for feedback,

but I'm also giving support where I can

with Heidi's process.

The fourth layer that
I do is thinking about

a post-colonial future where
it's optimistic and healing.

These layers don't sit
parallel to one another

because there are multiple
dimensions that are existing

alongside of all of us.

Painting is that device
that can defy time.

(clock ticks)

What I want my viewer to
experience is this paradox

where you can go backwards in time.

(wind rushes)

I think the land speaks to
you when you're looking at it.

(cicadas chirruping)

Why I continue to go back to New Mexico

is to reconnect with my past.

My father's family was from New Mexico,

and my mom's from San Ysidro, California,

but born in Tijuana.

I can't really explain
how much spiritual freedom

I sense when I'm there.

I go outdoor painting,
doing plein-air painting,

and in some ways it's about endurance.

You go out to a specific
site with a certain intention

but then nature guides you.

Time is shifting also.

Not only am I kind of building
these multiple dimensions,

I'm also literally chasing after light.

(footsteps crunch)

(birds chirp)

(clock ticks)
(gentle music)

Landscape painting for me, feels like

what all of our ancestors
used to do in the caves.

That's where we all began
thinking about space

but not severing it.

Colonial era painting came
into the United States

with the project of showing
how nature needs to be tamed

and all the savages need to be converted

and turned into men.

What I'm trying to do with
my work is deconstruct

what we're seeing.

Who used to live there,
who still lives there.

How do I utilize the language
of painting to expand

our vision of where we could
think about space and time.

Landscape painting can
start two dimensionally

but I think it could also expand
out into a whole worldview

to treat people in more equitable ways.

(subway announcer speaks)
(gentle orchestral music)

(train clacks)

(clock ticks)

It's crazy how much more fencing

they kind of put up around here

since we last were here, Mom?
- Oh yeah.

We used to consider this
a place where you could

just like, really run around

and especially when you're kids.

I would have never expected

that what I took as natural
and day-to-day, would change.

- [Esteban] It's weird to
just be here and making it

an image that we've seen
so much in mass media.

What can I say about it that isn't just

like something that's trying to define us?

- I think the privilege of having lived

a long life is that you know
that that is not permanent.

- Yeah.

- That at some point that
fence is going to go down,

but I have to bring back
a memory of this space

without the fences because
otherwise I go crazy.

You know, it's just really hard.

It's just really hard

to see the fences.
- Yeah, (sniffs)

thank you for sharing that, Mom.

We have to express it though too,

in order to get past it and imagine

something bigger than it.

(gentle music)
(clock ticks)

- We never knew if they
were coming for coffee.

(speaks in Spanish)
- Or spending the night.

- Spending the night or-
- Some of the core themes

of my work are about freedom.

(pensive music)

Freedom to really express yourself

and your relationship to
space and the environment.

Justice, how can you
do justice to the past?

And I think, also joy.

(gentle piano music continues)

I didn't start speaking till I was five

so painting was that way
for me to communicate

with other people.

I didn't have to explain myself.

Painting has always been
that method to go backwards

in time into that mode
of the five-year-old,

where I'm just feeling.

There's no words for it.