Badass Printmaker LURAC

Luis Campos-Garcia also known as Lurac, is a badass printmaker and an amazing artist overall who is very involved in his community. He is the curator of Sol Collective and his faith in community has lead him to not only create fabulous relief prints but also promote the importance of art for the people and the affects politics has on everyone.
Lurac started the talk with a deep breath in and a beautiful song played on a turtle shaped wind instrument (that I should have asked what it was called). With a traditional melody and soothing tone, the sounds created a sense of peace and immediately I was focused, excited to hear what he had to say. Immediately when he started speaking, Lurac's passion showed. Smiling throughout the entire talk, he emphasized how art inspires, gives voice, and empowers people.
His goal was to create something meaningful and relatable across cultures even though some of his imagery was culturally specific. When explaining his work with artists that He explained that the day of the dead skeletons symbolize that although we may be different in skin and culture, we are all human. This allows the viewer to see themselves or other people within his work.
Lurac's work is very culturally driven, fusing traditional and contemporary images in unique ways to connect the past and the present. Drawing from images from Mesoamerican culture, Lurac's influences stem from Mexico City where he originally studied graphic design. Mexican muralists and Taller de Grafica Popular (TGP - People's Graphics Workshop) were very influential on his art. Mexico City also had a big student movement which Lurac was a part of. He collaborated with fellow artists to create signs and promote the importance of art utilizing all forms of art.
He talked about Taring Padi, a collective based in Indonesia that work on large scale woodblocks. They make the printing process a ceremony with printing parties with music and dance. Music would be played as the printers ink the plate and after the fabric or paper is placed on top, people would be invited to dance on it.
As a contemporary artist, he loved the idea of taking art out of the gallery and making it accessible to everyone. He created the mobile art tent which displayed some of his work and the work of fellow artists during Crocker Art Museum's Block by Block event. He invited people of all ages to try printmaking techniques. His prints utilize screen printing, relief printing, and digital printing techniques.
In response to a question about the rise in popularity of graphic design as opposed to art, he stated that in recent days there seems to be a resurgence in printmaking, a "Print Renaissance" he called it. He said that the reason why printmaking is still around despite the rise in digital media is that it "gives you a sense of the human hand." As an aspiring printer myself, I might be biased when I say that his statement is 100% true.
He was very helpful when I asked about good carving tools to use, recommending Power Grip as a decent wood carving tool that's easy to find. He even recommended a few places for printmaking supplies as well. After the talk, he showed a few of us who stayed behind a couple of projects by Sol Collective and chatted some more about events the collective hosts. Check out Lurac's workshop at Sol Collective this Saturday morning!