Aware of—and always questioning—his relationship to art history, Francisco Moreno continually reinterprets genres and images from the past. In describing his inspiration for this meticulously painted image of a squirrel sipping a martini, Moreno says:
I was looking at the grass in a Northern Renaissance mother and child painting in Milan in 2019, and I thought about how normal and everyday it was. Then I thought about how that grass would look in a painting from today and how everyday animals would activate such a space. A relaxing squirrel by a tree came to mind. Personifying the squirrel by giving it a martini brings it into a surreal world while simultaneously making it relatable to the human condition. It becomes a meditation on something human and fantastical at the same time.
Loaded with historical and contemporary references, Moreno’s work exists as a playful take on one of the most essential cultural subjects—the figure in nature. In 2019, the Dallas Museum of Art acquired Moreno’s Chapel. His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions at venues worldwide and can be found in collection such as Dallas Museum of Art; Green Family Collection, Dallas; Jimenéz-Colón Collection, Puerto Rico; and Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.