Take a Walk on the Mild Side: The Chupacabras

Posted by: Craig Woolheater on February 19th, 2006

Well, to start off with, and Loren will be steamed about this, this exhibit is titled "The Chupacabra Chronicles", not Chupacabras, but Chupacabra.

This isn’t your father’s Chupacabras. Apparently he’s not out marauding local livestock, sucking the blood out of every goat in sight. Nay, this is a kinder, gentler Chupacabras.

Kinder Gentler Chupacabras

Artist and college professor Carlos G. Gómez’s collection of original artwork, "The Chupacabra Chronicles" is opening February 21st at the  Richardson Art Gallery at the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College, running through March 23, 2006.

Gómez has an interesting interpretation of the Chupacabras. In his artwork, they appear to be man-like.

In Carlos G. Gómez’s mind, the Chupacabra is a lonely creature with human characteristics; a being shaped by environment and society.

Gómez paints white, red, green and dark-colored Chupacabras. There are twin Chupacabras, the Wanderer, the Thinker, the Juan Diego Chupacabra and the Chupacabra Van Gogh to name a few.

“They come in all sizes and colors. They are just not understood,” Gómez said.

“I always see Chupacabras as us Mexicans — misunderstood. … It’s a metaphor for Chicanos. That was the basis for the idea,” Gómez said.

Chupa Bedouin

This piece resembles a Bedouin.

Gómez’s vision of the Chupacabras is radically different than how it is normally portrayed, a mysterious, blood-sucking creature.

Chupacabras

Chupacabras

Chupacabras

Press Release for the gallery showing.

Maybe people are ready for the kinder, gentler Chupacabras…but I’m not!

About Craig Woolheater
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005. I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films: OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.


7 Responses to “Take a Walk on the Mild Side: The Chupacabras”

  1. Loren Coleman responds:

    Gomez’s interpretation has almost everything to do with his personal journey and psychology apparently. These “green men” (in the individual “Bedouin” painting and the bigger llama-green man one he is standing next too) seem to have more to do with some spiritual, ethnic link that Gomez, as a Mexican, feels. But the Puerto Ricans “own” the Chupacabras, most recently, and to reclaim it as a Green Man may have more to do with European Celtic concepts than Hispanic/Latino ones.

  2. texasgirl responds:

    I found the REAL picture of the chupacabras on New Years eve.

  3. Mnynames responds:

    The Chupacabras story has always reminded me of the Jersey Devil, so I don’t find it surprising that it’s being reinterpreted in a more cultural manner. Not only has the Jersey Devil taken on supernatural characteristics beyond what I feel is the actual biological basis for the legend, it has been co-opted as a sort of mascot for the region in which it dwells…Heck, we have a hockey team named after him, and I live just down the road from the “Jersey Devils”, the 177th Fighter Squadron. Growing up in South Jersey, the Jersey Devil was our boogieman, used to frighten children into line. In folklore it became the embodiment of the trickster, mischievious but not actually evil. The Chupacabras seems well on its way to becoming a similar cultural icon. More power to it, although that will probably mean that, like Ol’ JD, it won’t be taken seriously by most researchers. Wading through so much cultural add-ons can be difficult, but I think all the more rewarding if such a researcher can persevere.

  4. CryptoInformant responds:

    Hair but no ears, only holes? This is just my first impression, but it sounds like a bipedal mammal-like reptile.

  5. carlos responds:

    They are not all green, some are white, blue with read moles, red with dark red freckles, some are old, some are young! Correct, the fellow on the page is a wanderer–roaming in the abrab world–so he hides and is a bedouin. The one behind me is a rather large painting cropped by a photographer for PR reasons. It is called the explantion–adults telling the kind the difference b/w snakes and yes it is in another world/time! There are 29 paintings and drawing in the exhibit..cgg

  6. devilinjerseycity responds:

    What I’m disturbed by is the actual pictures of chupacabra which are usually pictures of a shrivled up dead chuawauwah. I would like a slightly credible find to get into the chupacabra story.

  7. shumway10973 responds:

    texasgirl, your picture link is no longer. I have seen many ideas of what these guys are suppose to look like. By what they are suppose to do, I doubt they are very cute and cuddly. I would like to know what they are and how they accomplish eating like they do. Almost sounds like some spiders. Oh, that would be horrible if they were humongous spiders.

Sorry. Comments have been closed.

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