A signature aspect of the brothers’ art is a mix of high and low art, the rarefied with the mundane

For the library elevator, they’re installing two columns of diorama boxes (imagine really large aquariums with no water, but plenty of art). They’re stacked on top of one another, four to a column. As visitors take the glass elevator to the second floor, they’ll rise past the dioramas, each with different scenes inside.

The brothers were partly inspired by the dioramas in museums of Natural History — you know, the ones with taxidermy and painted backdrops depicting life on the Serengeti. They admire the craftmanship it takes to build those natural habitat dioramas. They also think it's an effective tool in focusing the viewer. "That idea of making a little world, a microcosm, is fascinating way to limit the viewers perspective and involve them in what you’re making," Einar explained.

And there’s plenty to get involved with in the de la Torre brothers' dioramas. They’re jam-packed, bearing the artists usual devotion to the baroque. There are references to Mexican, Aztec and Chicano culture, along with a healthy dose of pop culture in all of them. Each box is like a funhouse world; surreal and trippy. Each of the eight boxes are lined with prints that create an illusion of depth, or 3D effect. They’re called lenticular prints and the artists started using them about two years ago. "It’s a visual trick that gives you this three-dimensional effect that is really quite effective. We always say that our work is layered like an onion and with this technology we can do that more and more in one piece of acrylic," Jamex de la Torre said.

Many of the boxes have busts of famous composers and historical figures. "We're trying to imply this kind of classicism with the bust. There’s a very western aesthetic involved in this and higher learning implied there," Einar explained. "We wanted to allude to it, but also bust that open." Not sure if this pun was intended, but there it is. A clear resin bust of Napoleon (I think it's him) is filled with beads, shells and other bric-a-brac. A signature aspect of the brothers’ art is a mix of high and low art, the rarefied with the mundane.

Einar and Jamex de la Torre: Corpus Callosum
Text by Angela Carone
Photos by John Durant, De La Torre Brothers
San Diego Central Library, 330 Park Blvd, San Diego, CA 92101
SanDiego.gov/public-library/central-library