Carlos Gorriarena was born in Buenos Aires on December 20, 1925. In Gorriarena’s work five stages can be discerned.

Between 1959 and 1963 he painted in a naturalistic style. But in a second phase (1964-66), under the impact that Neofiguration has produced in him, he unhinges in his canvases the human appearances to allege the social situation.

In the third period (1967-70), chaos begins to be ordered and appearances to be recomposed, in his series Las Banderas and Las Bocas and Las Comidas. The fourth cycle is that of Political Art in full swing and lasts from 1971 to 1982. He then presents his series “Uncovered Face”, stories based on journalistic photos, and Homage to the graphic reporters of “Time”, in which he took the analysis of what he called “The incoherence of the world” to certain great international figures. But in his canvases and drawings of 1979-82, Gorriarena gave an account of the gloomy Argentina of illegal repression and economic emptying, with heartbreaking, lacerating, indignant images.

In the last decade he has often resorted to irony and sarcasm to deal with the power of the trades: that of regimented habits, ceremonies, social fashions, electronic media, tourism, and historical legends. They are allegories of a tribal, consumerist, insensitive universe, whose existence alerts us with abrupt and unexpected warning touches on the growing human reification.

He obtained, among other awards and distinctions, the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (1987), the First National Prize for Argentine Painting 1982/83 Union Carbide (1983), the Grand Prize of Honor National Painting Salon, National Halls (1986), the Artist of ’89 award of the Argentine Section of the International Association of Art Critics (1990), and the I Biennial Award of Paintings of the Konex Foundation (1992).