Carlos Buitrago is a Colombian-born contemporary painter based in Southern California. He studied at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles and has developed an independent
artistic practice shaped by experimentation, curiosity, and a refusal to be confined to a single style.

Working primarily with acrylics and mixed media on canvas and wood panel, Buitrago moves between figuration, abstraction, and Pop Art. His paintings are distinguished by saturated color,
intricate geometric structures, layered surfaces, and a sense of humor that often finds its way into unexpected places.
His work has been exhibited in the United States and internationally, including at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Japan, the Fullerton Museum Center, and the Orange County
Center for Contemporary Art. Recent exhibitions and projects have taken his work to Los Angeles and Palm Springs.

For Buitrago, painting is a lifelong commitment. He continues to experiment, develop new bodies of work, and pursue opportunities to exhibit his paintings internationally.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

I am interested in the moment when something familiar stops behaving as expected.

I work through painting because it allows contradictory things to occupy the same space without forcing them into agreement. Humor can coexist with discomfort, beauty with absurdity, order with accumulation. Words can be read and looked at.
An ordinary object can remain itself while becoming something else entirely. I begin with an idea, but I don't want the finished painting to simply explain it. I want the process of painting—color, material, gesture, accident, and revision—to complicate what seemed clear at the beginning. The work has to surprise me before I can expect it to hold anyone else's attention.
What interests me most is the point at which my control ends. I can construct the painting, but I cannot determine everything another person will find in it. That space between intention and interpretation is where I want the work to remain alive.