The massive, vividly colorful paintings of OKC-based muralist Carlos Barboza have become some of the city’s most visible and acclaimed public artworks, with his hyper-realistic and dramatic depictions of human faces and multiculturalism adorning buildings and public spaces all over town.
But when I spoke with Barboza last year, he said that he could feel his style and his focus shifting to something more personal and more heavily drawing from his own Costa Rican heritage that he had only recently begun to explore and embrace more fully following a trip back to his family’s native home.
Now, his first piece openly confronting and expressing his own immigrant experience can be seen as part of Oklahoma Contemporary’s ArtNow showcase of boundary-pushing modern art in his towering indoor mural entitled “What We Buried (We Became)”.
Featuring Barboza himself as a boy surrounded by representations and memories from both sides of his heritage, the painting is the most direct expression yet of the parts of his story that he says he kept buried for too long.
Carlos Barboza: I think as an artist, you're constantly trying to dig in, like, trying to find whatever content you've been able to kind of gather your entire life, you now. I always say I'm always, like, collecting material for my work.
One thing that I discovered while was out there was that there's this wealth of ideas that I never really tapped into yet. And I think it had to do with trying to forget, or trying to erase that part of myself all those years back.
And so the piece at Contemporary, that came about, you know, they wanted us to talk about identity and just what it means to be an Oklahoman. So to me, it's just like “Okay, I know exactly kind of what to talk about.”
Brett Fieldcamp: But in addition to that personal experience and examination of his own past, Barboza said he also wanted to embrace the opportunity to comment on the more timely and urgent issues of the present.
Carlos Barboza: Another reason that I felt compelled to do something like that is because, just politically, what's going on right now.
That's another reason why I think I'm being a little bit more outspoken about my story, too, is I think the only way to hopefully make people see a different point of view is by presenting them with a story that maybe they can empathize with.
And the reason why I think it works great as a mural too is, this is a big thing that I want to almost shout.
Brett Fieldcamp: It can be strange for an artist whose work is often dozens of feet tall and visible outdoors to only now be feeling like he has a stronger voice in the community, but that’s something that he’s been exploring more openly over the past year, first as a co-founder of CANOPY, the new countercultural art hub and gallery in OKC’s Plaza District, and also as a solo showcasing artist.
Just down the street from CANOPY, the Plaza’s DNA Gallery also hosted an exhibition of Barboza’s longstanding canvas works, overlapping with Contemporary’s ArtNow opening, offering viewers a glimpse of his past with multiple pieces inspired by his own family that he’s painted and shown periodically over years of developing his voice and style.
Carlos Barboza: Part of me almost kind of feels this is the final show for these pieces. You know, it's almost like now I can lay them to rest.
I'm now at this point in time where I kind of want them out, you know, and I want to start a whole new series of paintings.
So I think, for me anyway, this DNA show feels to me more of like a goodbye to like the old way of painting and doing things.
Brett Fieldcamp: Keeping his work more current and forward-facing is made a little easier when the nature of mural-painting means that it is temporary, no matter how involved or passionately created a piece is.
Even the deeply personal “What We Buried” is set to be painted over by Contemporary after the close of ArtNow in February, a reality that Barboza says helps him to not dwell or become too precious about his works.
Carlos Barboza: I always tell myself, like, “okay, it’s only gonna be there for a short amount of time, like don't worry about it too much, don't stress too much about the details or things,” but I can't help but always show up and paint it as if it's something that will live on for, you know, 500 years after me.
I always want it to have the same amount of care as that. But I don't know, I do also like the idea, or I find a little bit of romanticism in the fact that it's temporary and that it is just me making a statement and then, you know, it'll disappear.
In the same way, this is almost just me adding a word to the conversation, and just for me to say something for this particular show,
Brett Fieldcamp: Barboza says that he’s not sure where the next year could take him or his work, but that for now, he’s happy to be engaging more than ever with Oklahoma’s arts community through CANOPY and collaborative shows like ArtNow, and also engaging so openly with his past and his own story.
Carlos Barboza: A lot of my work, not just that piece, but since I've been back from Costa Rica, my paintings, too, have been so heavily tied to just my family as well.
A friend of mine, he commented on one of my pieces and said that in order to move forwards, you need to look backwards. So it's almost like I am kind of discovering my canon, kind of like where I came from.
And so hopefully that will just make me a better artist, and I'm moving forward, you know, almost like exercising these things out so that I can figure out myself a little better.
Brett Fieldcamp: You can see Carlos Barboza’s large-scale mural painting “What We Buried (We Became)” at Oklahoma Contemporary right now as part of their ArtNow 2025 exhibition, and you can keep up with his work by visiting carlosbarboza.com and by following @barboza_art on Instagram.
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