Perhaps the 10 drawings from the series The Poor Boy (aniline on paper, 35.5 x 27.5 cm each) are the first works preserved from the oeuvre of Miguel von Dangel, created at the age of 16.

As if it were a kind of terribly real comic strip, the young von Dangel addresses a theme that is all too familiar to him: the harsh living conditions in the popular neighborhood of Petare where he lives.

With a nervous and moving stroke, these prints reflect the typical episodes of a poor child's life: the fun of improvised games, survival (cleaning shoes, stealing), the relationship with his mother (she is a prostitute and throws him out of the house), fantasy and imagination—an escape valve in times of hardship—in the pieces “Trying to Fly” and “Feeling Nostalgia for the Sea,” and finally, “Death by Sadness.”

And far from being daunted by the harsh context, the young artist found in poverty and the tough conditions of the neighborhood the impetus to continue exploring his vocation. Over time, his stubborn will to work and study shaped and expanded his discourse, in which the concern for the ground we walk on has always been present.

As a curious fact, it is worth noting that these drawings were not shown to the public until 30 years after they were created, at the Anthological Exhibition of Miguel von Dangel held by the National Art Gallery of Caracas in 1993. There, in front of the monumentality of works like Portrait of My Mother (1982) or The Battle of San Romano (1984-1990), the tenderness and pain evident in these early works did not diminish in comparison; on the contrary: they seduced with their simplicity and innocence because they contained the seed of the great later work.

Albert Camus once noted that “each artist keeps within himself, deep down, a unique source that nourishes throughout his life what he is and what he says.” Given this, it would not be far-fetched to understand the series The Poor Boy as that watering hole to which Von Dangel always returns.

Álvaro Mata