Escoto + Carrara

Escoto + Carrara (City of Mexico, Mexico, 1981-1982)

Federico Escoto (1981) and Roberto Carrara (1982) make up the Mexican artistic duo Escoto + Carrara. Self-taught photographer and painter, they are life partners and creative collaborators.

Both creators graduated in Art History at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Federico completed his training in the studio of Luis Fernando Camino (1999-2003), while Roberto began his artistic career working with his father, the prestigious Mexican photographer Roberto Carrara.

Escoto + Carrara have participated in numerous collective and individual exhibitions in Mexico and the United States. She exhibited for the first time in Portugal, in May 2018, at JustLX Contemporary Art Fair, held at Museu da Carris in Lisbon.

Photography and painting are fused into as Roberto Carrara and his partner Federico Escoto join forces. Roberto brings the photography skills into the table while Federico incorporates his expertise in oil painting. Together, they create vibrant and abstract compositions of the female figure.

Experiencing their artworks, either as oils on canvas or as a digital image, is similar to experiencing fil negatives, where the colour has been inverted. Highlighting topics of feminism is the objective. Female figures are the subjects most commonly encountered in these artworks. Roberto and Federico make a point to include them in order to represent their own fight for feminism in support of women's rights and advocating for the protection of women's bodies.

They have developed their own unique style and artistic voice with minimal influence of materialism. Especially so since neither artist went to an art school. Escoto + Carrara's artworks fused hyperrealism and surrealism, playing with colour distortions, pop art injections, cinematography and symmetry. They combine painting, photography and digital printing.

They play with the classic notions of composition and portrait. The exceptional use of colour is understood as a disturbing element of the traditional narrative. Their rebelliousness is shown through the use of colors "forgotten" or little used within the conventional portrait, giving works an ethereal, timeless and almost unsettling feeling.