Artist Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, affected by the Eaton fire, traces memories and time

Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio didn’t slumber the full nighttime earlier the Eaton occurrence deed his Altadena vicinity successful aboriginal January. The strength of the winds and powerfulness outage had him connected edge. The creator and his spouse were sitting successful the dark, connected their phones, glued to the quality arsenic harrowing details came retired of the Palisades. But Aparicio’s evening took a devastating crook erstwhile helium began receiving messages from friends that a occurrence erupted supra Pasadena.

“We could spot these monolithic flames wicking disconnected the apical of the upland and moving fast,” helium said.

Aparicio near without knowing it would beryllium the past clip helium would spot his house.

The mates safely fled with their 3 pets — cats Bird and Mammon and a dog, Dune — and a fewer belongings. But his location bureau contained years of drawings, drafts of projects and notes. There were besides paintings by his father, Juan Edgar Aparicio, an creator whose enactment captured the trauma of the Salvadoran civilian war.

All of it was destroyed.

A rare, 100-year-old bluish cactus Aparicio planted with hundreds of autochthonal taxon successful his gait are among the scorched remains. An immense sculptural beehive oven, “Pansa del Publicó,” which helium primitively built arsenic a nationalist sculpture astatine L.A. State Historic Park, is irrecoverable owed to toxification from the fire. It besides operated arsenic a mutual-aid task to provender radical during the COVID-19 pandemic and arsenic a motion to his parents: His father, who was an activistic and pupil person successful El Salvador organizing with the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front and his mother, a lawyer and erstwhile enforcement manager astatine the Central American Resource Center.

One of the paintings by his begetter mislaid to the fire, “Pesadilla de un General,” was created successful 1994 and focused connected children whose lives were taken successful the war. In the painting, a young miss — engulfed successful a radiant glow — points her digit astatine a wide lasting earlier her. The exemplary was Eddie’s sister Carolina, named aft Juan Edgar’s preteen daughter, who was disappeared by paramilitary forces on with her mother.

Weeks earlier the fire, Aparicio brought respective of his father’s woody partition sculptures and paintings location from his creation workplace successful North Hollywood, reasoning they would beryllium safer determination — 1 included a dedication to the 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests successful El Salvador.

Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio and his canine Dune.

(William Liang / For de Los)

“I see [these] to beryllium his astir important and important works,” Aparicio said. “I held connected to them due to the fact that I was having conversations with antithetic institutions truthful they could cod them, attraction for them and show them.”

Aparicio says his dada has seldom been capable to speech astir this delicate period: “It’s portion of wherefore helium stopped making that benignant of work.”

Their loss, helium acknowledged, “has decidedly been heavy.”

But his father, who lives successful La Palma, El Salvador, is hoping to bring the paintings backmost to life.

“Even though the paintings were destroyed successful the fire, it’s thing that happened to the satellite and happened to El Salvador, specifically,” said Juan Edgar. “I privation to beryllium capable to remake them. The fires can’t instrumentality the world of that away.”

And conscionable similar his father, Aparicio says helium volition proceed making creation that tackles causes important to him, which present includes his acquisition escaping the Eaton fire.

The 34-year-old often engages with the conception of ever-shifting clip and materiality arsenic a instrumentality for preserving and archiving realities. The torched properties successful his Altadena municipality were a reminder of however the occurrence that devastated his assemblage is connecting to his work.

Aparicio explores themes of erasure and representation to grant and bespeak connected his family’s past during and aft the Salvadoran civilian warfare by usingmaterials specified arsenic amber oregon petrified resin and rubber, inspired by Indigenous techniques, his Salvadoran practice and L.A. roots. His ongoing “Caucho (Rubber)” bid features casts of trees, similar the ficus, labeled arsenic “invasive” successful Southern California decades aft metropolis planners introduced them passim L.A. He uses rubber castings arsenic metaphors to admit communities susceptible to “forced displacement” successful broader discussions astir identity, question and migration.

This month, Aparicio volition enactment astatine the UCLA Center for the Art of Performance Omnibus Series, “Salvage Efforts,” wherever helium volition bespeak connected U.S.-Salvadoran corporate memory, weaving unneurotic topics that helium already integrates into his artwork.

Aparicio said helium archetypal encountered art-making done his father, who ended up successful Westlake aft fleeing El Salvador successful 1982. As Aparicio developed his practice, helium looked deeper into the satellite astir him. He did this done “various methods of engagement, immoderate of which were rational and technological [or] a batch much subjective and imaginative,” helium said. “I find that to beryllium a truly fruitful spot to deliberation astir being portion of the Salvadoran diaspora, peculiarly due to the fact that truthful overmuch of its past is chartless to Salvadorans and the wide nationalist oregon has been erased purposefully and obfuscated. So, it’s this spot of aggravated probe and imaginative spaces of filling gaps.”

Aparicio’s archetypal large show, 2018’s “My Veins Do Not End successful Me” — named aft a enactment successful a poem by the Salvadoran writer Roque Dalton — was an evocative and intimate portrayal of remembrance and the effects of the U.S.-backed Salvadoran civilian warfare done artwork from 3 generations of Aparicio’s family. Aparicio’s precocious grandmother, Maria de la Paz Torres Aparicio, handcrafted dolls adorned with apparel that radical near down during the war. His dad’s artwork hung betwixt Aparicio’s colossal rubber castings dangling from the ceiling, embodying residual markings.

The power of familial experiences connected his enactment is evident, suggesting that representation is inherited. His archetypal solo depository presentation in 2024, astatine the Geffen Contemporary astatine MOCA, included a glimmering installation of amber splayed crossed the floor. The rubric “601ft2 para El Playon / 601 sq. ft for El Playon” refers to the lava tract adjacent El Salvador’s superior that became an infamous dumping crushed successful the war. The cascading amber-encapsulated ceramic bones, unneurotic with recovered objects and ephemera from MacArthur Park, service arsenic a motion to the greenish space’s heavy past of organizing and beingness for the Central American diaspora.

Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, “601 sq. ft. for El Playon (detail),” 2023, mixed media

(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)

“During the walk-through of that amusement with my dad, who had travel to sojourn from El Salvador, helium told maine [El Playon] is wherever the assemblage of his girl was found,” helium said.

While walking done the debris fields successful his aged neighborhood, Aparicio was drawn to pieces of solid that had morphed into an iridescent colour and slumped implicit from the vigor of the fire.

Like his earlier works of reclamation, Aparicio looked astatine the rubble of the Eaton occurrence arsenic a palette.

“It’s a spot wherever everyone cared astir past and spot and place-making. I can’t deliberation of a azygous location successful the entirety of Altadena that looked similar a caller construction,” helium says. Aparicio’s chiseled neighborhood, the quality surrounding it, the location helium filled with curations and the landscaping helium designed and built mirrored his art-making. Like a painting, this municipality and its situation held memories and stories, revealing a circumstantial clip but altered by the fire.

In March, Aparicio participated successful the coating of a collaborative mural arsenic portion of a clime rally astatine the Pasadena Community Job Center. Aparicio designed the chimney and ceramic fireplace successful the work, loosely based connected the lone remaining operation successful his house. The overgarment was made of ash and charcoal ground, “sifted and mixed” from the Altadena and Palisades fires by arts organizer David Solnit and volunteers.

Aparicio recalls seeing the haunting representation of chimneys crossed the quality aft the occurrence swept L.A. “[They’re] thing that has survived beauteous consistently and gives america a roadworthy representation to the future. It is simply a awesome some of demolition and optimism,” helium says.

Wolfson is simply a freelance writer based successful Los Angeles.