Noelia Cruz - Violinist / Artist / Creative Director

Index

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Gotcha Paintings (2007–2010)

The first series of Gotcha Paintings emerged during the War in Afghanistan and Iraq as a response to the way language distanced us from the reality of loss. It was an attunement to the loss of attunement itself, to how violence was reframed and numbed through repetition. Terms like Casualties, Collateral Damage, and MIA became part of a televised rhythm that rendered human lives into abstractions. My work began to ask: What happens when grief is absorbed into discourse and loss of life is reduced to data?

This series wonders how we assimilate and erase tragedy through rhetorical conditioning, through screens, games, and reframed language.

Each painting in the series is titled after a phrase echoed across news cycles, headlines, and military briefings. The triptych Collateral Damage is composed in the form of an army rank insignia.

These works are executed using oil-based paintball guns, chosen as material, gesture, and medium of assimilation.

Gotcha questions its own celebratory statement and the hyperreality channels that blur those lines

©2025

Noelia Cruz - Violinist / Multidisciplinary Artist

Website by Camila Cruz