¡Alto Al Fuego!  An Ensenada Artist Calls for Peace in Palestine 

“There is no instrument right now on the whole planet that is able to stop this genocide that is happening in Palestine,” said Alfonso Arámbula Robles while standing in the heart of Centro Estatal de Las Artes, Ensenada’s State Center for the Arts. 

The Baja California resident helped found the center in 2006 and has been an active artist for years; however, this is his first instance of “art activism” in a very long time. Robles was heartbroken at the violence happening in Gaza and felt a deep need to express himself. That led to ¡Alto Al Fuego!  

Robles created a series of provocative images detailing the devastation and carnage caused by the Israel-Palestine conflict. Robles named this art exhibit ¡Alto Al Fuego! because, as he put it, it is time for the world to collectively raise their voices and say “Stop! Cease the Fire!”  

At the center of the exhibit stands a gnarled chunk of wood, riddled with holes, pierced by lances, and sporting a sheet of metal painted with red stains to symbolize blood. Robles said that this is Gaza. It is, as Robles put it, “a very primitive concept, but it really shows the cruelness of what is going on.” 

Gaza 

Robles was careful not to call these pieces of art paintings, instead referring to them as pintás. “Pintás” are, according to Robles, more akin to graffiti. They aren’t the kind of paintings you would put on display in a museum. They are works of art made for social activism to express discontent with something.  

Robles pintás featured famous cultural images like the Spanish painter Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes‘s iconic “Scream” to invoke feelings of total horror, and the image of a weeping Don Quixote de La Mancha weeping to show what sorrow the knight would feel at what is going on in Gaza. 

One painting featured large flies consuming the dead of Palestine; another featured an aerial view of a bombed and scarred Palestine that has been bombed and scarred. Some paintings included black fabric screens over them to represent the smoke and shroud of war.  

Initially, Robles specified that he does not claim that his opinions about the conflict are absolutely correct or that he is the one in the right. However, Robles did firmly state that he feels Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu is an “evil guy.” Robles had two pintás that depict Netanyahu: one of him gazing through a window at the world, and another with him hidden behind the smoke of war. Robles claimed, “he is the one that doesn’t want to stop the war,” so one pintá features people shouting at him to “cease the fire!” 

While Robles made it clear that he wants an end to all of the violence, his pintás do clearly show Israeli tanks perpetrating the violence, and a US warship on its way to reinforce Israel. 

Alfonso Arámbula Robles typically does what he describes as “whimsical art,” but he said he felt the need to express his emotions and speak out against the violence. Robles believes that if the world can come together and declare that the gunfire and violence must stop, then a true ceasefire could be accomplished. He shared that this exhibit has already accomplished part of his goal. Robles says that “there’s lots of people that came for this opening that didn’t know about what’s going on in Palestine” until they saw the exhibit.  

“I don’t want to be like right about Palestine or Israel,” said Robles, but the artist firmly believes that the fighting needs to be stopped and that the people of the world need to stand up and say so.  

Editor’s note: Garrett Green was a long time journalist here at The Roadrunner and is currently travelling, and writing, in Mexico. This article was originally posted on Garrett’s substack: https://garrettgreen.substack.com/.