CHUCK RAMIREZ

Chuck Ramirez was an artist and designer who lived and worked in San Antonio, Texas. As an artist and graphic designer, Ramirez processed and deconstructed the media world in which he lived. His work employs visual and conceptual techniques found in contemporary advertising and package design. Using typography and digital imaging technology, Ramirez isolated and recontextualized familiar objects and texts to explore the human condition. Always personally relevant, Ramirez explored cultural identity, mortality and consumerism through his photographs and installations. The images in his 1997 series, Coconut, slyly subverted stereotypes of those who cross cultural boundaries. Ramirez resurrected waste—photographing filled garbage bags, dying flowers, and battered, empty piñatas—reflecting on the fleeting nature of human existence while imposing the will to survive.