Ernesto Beckford
Artist Statement

I began making art later in life, after a forty-year legal career. My collages emerge from a personal journey shaped by exile from Argentina, life as a Hispanic gay man, and a desire to connect the spiritual with the sensual.

​

I use collage because it embraces fragmentation, ambiguity, and surprise. Cutting and reassembling images allows me to explore layered identities and emotional truths. Figures may fade or fracture, symbols may shift. What seems familiar often turns slightly askew, inviting a second look.

​

Much of my work draws from classical and religious imagery, reimagined through a contemporary lens. I’m interested in how beauty can arise from contradiction—and how tradition can be challenged or undone. The compositions invite reflection rather than resolution, balancing quiet defiance with visual pleasure.

I don’t aim for realism, but for resonance: textures, gestures, and unexpected juxtapositions that evoke memory, longing, and belonging. Beauty, for me, is not decorative—it’s a form of resistance, especially when it comes from the margins.

​

I’m also a writer. My short stories explore themes of identity and transformation with the same layered sensibility as my visual work. Whether through words or images, I search for grace flickering within contradiction.