Carlos Llerena Aguirre

Carlos Llerena Aguirre is an artist, cinematographer, musician, and professor at the University of Miami. He has published woodcuts in international journals and books.

His video art and documentaries have been chosen as “Official Selections” in international film competitions:

Ischia International Film Festival, Napoli, Italy. FLAVIA Festival Latinoamericano de Videoarte, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Cortoacquario VI Festival Internazionale Cortometraggi, Santa Marinella, Roma, Italia. Festival Internacional de Cine Toluca, FICT México.

He represented Peru and the USA with his large-format woodcuts in the Douro International Print Biennale, Portugal. Norsk Internasjonal Grafikk Biennale, Norway. The Jubilam X Internationale Grafik Triennale, Norway. Pacific States Biennial National Print Exhibition and The Xylon Graphische International Triennale, Switzerland.

His woodcuts are in the Library of Congress Permanent Collection.

Credit: Carlos Llerena Aguirre

Artistic and Academic Profile

  • Specialty: Internationally recognized for his large-format woodcut prints (xilografías). His editorial illustrations have appeared in major global publications like The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Village Voice, Daily News, and The Washington Post.

  • Focus on the AI Era: He actively participates in academic forums and institutional projects (such as the Expressing human creativity in the age of AI initiatives) that explore how fine arts interact with closed AI systems, digital art, NFTs, and the definition of human authorship.

  • Research Focus: His current line of work is titled "Defragmentation of Pre-Columbian and Postcolonial Iconography," in which she investigates the visual expressions, archetypes, and music of Peru's indigenous cultures and their intersection with colonial history.

  • Ethnographic Film and Graphic Novels: In addition to the visual arts, she produces ethnographic documentary films, video art, and graphic novel series inspired by Peruvian historical memory.

Credit: Carlos Llerena Aguirre

Current art and/or research interest:

I make conceptual woodcut prints, video art, graphic novels, ethnographic documentaries, and oil paintings. In my practice I appropriate icons, elements, music, archetypes, and stories from the past. I resurrect these icons or stories by changing their meaning within a different context and medium.

 For my research and practice I chose intersectionality, an analytical framework to identify multiple factors of my social and political identities. I used two different paths, the personal visual practice and publishing. Besides creating woodcuts for exhibitions and Printmaking Biennales, I illustrate chronicles for major newspapers, magazines, and books. These published woodcuts, paintings and drawings have a very strong social and political impact in the world. Millions of people see it published in one day.

The same method with film. I studied and practice ethnographic documentary film; And in my other practice, I create videoart which is about visual poetry and postmodernism.

Credit: Carlos Llerena Aguirre

Student PhD 2022, PGRs--woodcut, painting, myth, intersectionality, visual poetry, post colonial, PhD