Welcome to this seven part, end of year series! New episodes released each weekday between Dec 13-21. Inspired by the Black radical tradition of the harmony between the lyrical and visual. I am joined by friends (artists, dancers, musicians) to explore the musical influences that inspire their work. We also look to the people, real and imagined, familial and ancestral who guide them.

Today I am joined by Jose Campos, who is also known by his artist name, Studio Lenca.

Jose considers himself to be an artist that doesn’t belong anywhere apart from the world he creates.

He says that “I have a deep longing to connect with the land of my ancestors. It’s a longing that I don’t realise is always there until it gets fulfilled.”

Jose was forcibly displaced as a consequence of El Salvador’s civil war, he one of the first wave of child migrants moving to the USA. Travelling illegally with his mother, the family lived as ‘illegal aliens’, cleaning houses with no fixed address.

His paintings depict regal figures that seek to decentralise the collective idea of Salvadoran identity.

The work playfully references a combination of biographical anecdotes, personal reflections and folkloric iconography.

ENJOY!

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Studio Lenca @ TKE Studios in Margate.

Studio Lenca website.

Representation Carl Freedman Gallery.

This series was produced and hosted by Lou Mensah

Music King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian Jackson

Mixing by Tess Davidson

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