Jose Bacarreza (born 5 July 1982) is a contemporary Chilean painter. Bacarreza works and lives in Perth, Western Australia, and is known for his large-scale oil paintings, often portraying a dramatic intwinement of the human psyche with the natural world. His works deftly invite the viewer to experience the simultaneous existence of beauty and death, happiness and grief, and vulnerability and strength. Through symbolism, color, and texture on the canvas, he invokes mystery, nostalgia, dreams, and fantasy, enticing the viewer to step in and dig into a seemingly limitless exploration of emotions. Bacarreza juxtaposes imaginary limits of the size of the Universe and one’s mind with the physical limitations of the size of the canvas.
Influenced by the techniques of the great masters of the High Renaissance and Baroque periods, such as Diego Velázquez and Rembrandt, and stylistically blending surrealism, realism, and impression, Bacarreza engages the viewer in a multi-level conversation. Other painters such as Willilam-Aldophe Bouguereau, Joaquín Sorolla, Ilya Repin, The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Lucien Freud, and Jenni Saville also impact his work.
In the year 2022 he exhibit on the Western Australian Maritime Museum as part of Dr. Lesa Melnyczuk’s lecture and film presentation on the Ukrainian genocide. Dr. Melnyczuk featured Bacarreza as a speaker about his painting, “War and Hope” (2022). Currently, Bacarreza continues to exhibit in museums as Puri Lukisan and Taman Dedari in Bali where he lives at the moment (2024), preparing his next show back to Australia the same year.