Family mythology has it that Emilio is the grandson of a secret liason between Frida Kahlo and Leon Trotsky. It is known that his father Nikolai was raised in an orphanage in Coyoacan, Mexico City and acquired his surname through a misspelling of the famous Mexican freedom fighter. At the age of 13 Nikolai ran away to sea, finally ending up in Chatham were he had a brief affair with Emilio’s mother, Helen. Emilio was born in Maidstone, in 1971. It is said that his mother gave birth to him whilst frying eggs on an old gas stove, so that he literally sees himself as having be born “out of the frying pan”.
His work is spontaneous and quickly executed with little thought for the results. Although he rarely speaks about it, his idea is to catch a moment, but the moment he seems to talk about is of the inner experience of the spirit reacting to the material world rather than the eye- hence the necessity for speed and spontaneity- one blink and everything has changed.
Some years ago whilst hiking alone in a remote region of the Caucasus mountains, near Mamaiski, he conceived the idea of Idiosynchronism whereby the artist creates work only for himself. The end result being of no consequence whatsoever because no other person can ever experience the moment of its creation. Even though he rejects all modern interpretations of Duchampian conceptions of art, he chose to emulate one of Duchamp’s artworks the Unhappy Readymade and whisper his ideas to the winds and thereby spread them surreptitiously throughout the world. His notions have born fruit and he has since been joined by many other artists in their quest for a different approach to art.
