words of Orlando Licea Díaz
Once again Lara surprises us with an expression of his being. In this case, he gives us a series of 209 aphorisms, which implies an invitation to penetrate into the deep of his spiritual inquiries. And the thing is that Lara is, as I once said it straight to him, more than an artist, he is a worker of the spirit. And I say worker and not potter, or illuminati or guru, or dreamer, because he insists on creating for all—and even to him—a place where it can be enjoyed life from tangible facts, spiritual bricks, and not from clouds, thoughts, mysteries or creases.
It gives the impression that Lara feels the insensitivity that surrounds him—just like many other artists—but, unlike others who follow to the letter the saying “take no notice of the stupid things people say”, they continue their peculiar road, ignoring the environmental deafness, as long as they can survive and live at their expenses. Lara, however, screams louder each time, he changes the language, paints, sculpts, sings, paints, composes, makes portraits, he is expressed in all shades and languages, until finding at least a way that come to the senses—even in one way—of the ones immersed in insensitivity and mistakes.
Lara deeply feels contradiction, con, hypocrisy, lack of humanism, superficiality, banality, fragmentation, in short, the derangement of the existence of many people. And it hurts him, weights him, moves him… it makes him look, with an impulsive and hard effort, for an antidote against the multiple venoms that so delightfully human beings taste these times. From all times?
His discursive thinking goes by—as everything in him—in excess; he doesn’t care about styles, forms, schools, rituals or marketing. He devours protocols, because his effort has no restraints. He is in a hurry because he knows the world desperately needs to invest in the spiritual aspect, under penalty of breaking for good.
When breaking the mysteries, he also breaks himself; he discovers deep down of the human being each of the contradiction of the alienation typical to class society. And even though he does not say so, it is sensed and felt. He hates masks. Only in humility—which is not as the same as in poverty—human beings can find the remedy to their mortal sickness, that can be called by its thousands of diagnoses, among them fear, envy, ambition, lust, propriety, frustration, violence, crime, and injustice.
Loneliness is felt, as it is incomprehension and even despair. Not meaning any protection or therapy, Lara needs to make a team, to turn his voice into a choir, his cry into lightening, his irreverence into law, his search into finding. As he confesses:
Why would I take delight in the plans of my heart, if my hands are still with no scars and infidelity with pain satisfies me?
Spirituality starts to be a crime, only when it is asserted to our own service.
Lara knows that perfection is an enemy of what’s possible, but he tries over and over again to do what’s possible every time, even though he does not get perfection—which can be more hurtful than useful. The spiritual aspect is not denial of passion, energy, desire, pleasure or sin; living without making mistakes, without seeking or suffering… and above all, without forgiving, is more dying than living. We must live, suffer, err and forgive, trying that subtlety joins every time with more intensity to our essence.
Keep on your quests, Lara, but does not neglect your armor!
