Artist Juan Carlos Cabrera-Ramirez has all too acute an understanding of how anti-gay domestic violence inside a single house can be a reflection of anti-gay domestic violence, so to speak, on a national scale, with a heterosexist majority oppressing LGBT minorities. Native to Tumbes on the northernmost coast of Peru, the now 33-year-old Cabrera even at an early age was subject to abuse from his own parents, who deemed him too gay-seeming. Early on, he manifested a spark of creativity which they tried to snuff, viewing creativity as a thing for maricones. After seven years in Lima, Cabrera in 2002 came to New York, here finding worlds of liberated inspiration. Tragically, he fell into the clutches of a gay domestic violence abuser, who at the end of a two-year reign of terror against him hoisted him into the air, slammed him to the ground and then trampled him, rupturing his spleen.
His abuser, who has been featured on Live With Regis as a New York City real estate expert, was arraigned on a felony assault charge and eventually convicted of assault, but given a wrist-slap sentence in a criminal justice process gruelling to Cabrera, who still struggles against severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Just over a year ago, though, Cabrera began art therapy sessions at a dedicated domestic violence victims’ center at a YWCA in Greenwich, Connecticut. The results have been astonishing, with Cabrera turning out artwork after artwork, many expressive of his ever-increasing self-acceptance and pride in being gay. An art show including his works continues at the Y through October.
“I felt such a hunger to express myself, ” he says in his charmingly accented English, “but I just couldn’t find a way to throw off my fears and inhibitions. I was always too shy to take that risk. I guess my God was waiting for the right moment to show me my direction.”
Raised Catholic, Cabrera has a personal feel for his faith that is very much at odds with the gay-bashing politics of the Catholic Church. “He’s El Demonio,” the Devil, he’ll say, in reference to Ratzinger. “That thing isn’t even human. Uck; look at it. How dare he talk against gay people and their rights, when I know that God made me gay, and loves me exactly the way I am?”
Of the dozens and dozens of works Cabrera has so far created, some are oils, others are acrylics, still others water colors – and many are in soft pastels, even crayon. Like many of his creations, Sueño con Flores, which in English the artist calls Dreaming with Flowers, was inspired by a dream. “I like to experiment with different paints and artist’s pencils . . . I’ll just pick up what appeals to me at a given moment and run with it. Sueño con Flores is done in water colors and carbon pencil. The different textures . . . the solidity of the background, the whimsical appearance of the magenta flowers . . . it shows a masculine and a feminine side. We all have it, we accept it and we show it, I say. ”
Joie de vivre bursts forth from Cabrera’s painting ¡España! — an abstract expression of Cabrera’s pride in la tierra madre – Spain — the ultimate homeland for all Latino people. Of his painting Energìa Sexual (image, below) – Sexual Energy – he says “This communicates my steadily growing acceptance of and excitement over the Pandora’s box of my sexuality – as full of surprises, colors and vibrancy as life itself.”
Cabrera has strong feelings about the gay community’s, as well as the wider society’s failure to impose strong deterrent penalties on domestic violence offenders. “More, much more needs to be done to get victims the escape from torture and the humane treatment they deserve. I know from my experiences that you become trapped, not just in the psychology of it but literally trapped into a corner with an abuser lording his power over you and making you fearful that he will kill you if you tell the outside world what is happening. It’s a nightmare, a total nightmare. And did you know that in all of New York City, there isn’t one dedicated refuge for gay victims of domestic violence?” Now there’s an idea for the philanthropically inclined.
Cabrera’s first-ever painting, Amoris, was a phallic image that he created staying up until dawn in a white heat of inspiration. While making touch-ups to it later, he accidently ripped the canvass a bit and then, for reasons not yet fully clarified, destroyed the work. Missing it later on, he created a pride rainbow overlaid with kissing doves that he calls Amoris, la Resurrección. “Each of my paintings has a very individual energy,” he says, “even the ones that deal with heavy subjects, and pain and sorrow, give me more and more strength as I look at, study and live with them.” Fuerza y Coraje, Strength and Courage, shows a wounded bird, summoning all his inner resources to escape from a perilous situation out to safety.
Another work that didn’t survive reworking was El Ojo de Jesús, inspired by Cabrera’s recollections of his mother singing him a Spanish-language children’s song, Palomita Blanca, Palomita Azul. The little blue dove of that painting, though, was reborn as the more forceful adult bird depicted in Melancolia. Esperanza, Hope, (image, top,) depicts Cabrera’s present goals with his art. “Painting is more than just making beautiful things,” he says. “Painting is the reflection of my soul. With my art, I would like to convey a message of hope for a better world, filled with harmony, respect, tolerance and solidarity.”
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New York City-​based novelist and freelance writer Scott Rose’s LGBT-​interest by-​line has appeared on Advocate​.com, PoliticusUSA​.com, The New York Blade, Queerty​.com, Girlfriends and in numerous additional venues. Among his other interests are the arts, boating and yachting, wine and food, travel, poker and dogs. His “Mr. David Cooper’s Happy Suicide†is about a New York City advertising executive assigned to a condom account.