Wilmeth’s art prints showcased at Art Print, July 28, 2006, Group exhibit at Casa Diana, The determining force of our being By Peter Leventhal, Interview with Keith Miller, master painter, Happy Birthday, Magenta

Holly Wilmeth was born and raised in Guatemala. As the daughter of a farmer, she spent half her time in the city and the other half in the dense jungles and agricultural landscapes of Guatemala.

A freelance photographer based in San Miguel de Allende and Guatemala, she holds a degree in political science and languages and speaks fluent Spanish, German and English and is proficient in Japanese and Italian. After graduating from the university, she moved to Japan for two years, where she taught English and cultural diversity to rural communities. She has traveled to over 45 countries as a cultural observer and avid hiker. Her passion for ethnic cultures and hiking has taken her around the world, from the remote corners of East Asia to the far north of Mongolia.

Her journey in photography began on the streets of Guatemala and its countryside, where she documented the culture and people’s relationship to agriculture. After two years in Japan, she returned to the United States in 2003 to pursue a career in photography.

She attended the SALT Institute for Documentary Studies, worked at Aurora Stock Agency, and apprenticed with Robb Kendrick on tintypes. As a documentary photographer and photojournalist, she focuses on in-depth stories relating to marginalized and struggling people, culture, diversity and people and their environment. Her work has been published in National Geographic Adventure, the Houston Chronicle, and Time magazine, among others. A percentage of sales will support PEASMA, an ecological educational foundation project based in San Miguel.

At Galería Casa Diana’s group exhibition opening and cocktail reception next week, besides the work of its permanent artists the gallery features work by Harry Van Dine, Sam Seeman, Artemio Sepulveda, Mike Kligerman, Gabriella Martin and Lewis Kant. Galería Casa Diana’s permanent artists are Pedro Friedeberg, Deborah Turbeville, Miguel Angel Morales, Luis Espiridion and Carmen Gutierrez.

Harry Van Dine’s work is predominantly figurative and invariably realistic. It is beautifully painted and essentially representational with subtle surrealistic overtones. It covers a wide variety of subjects, but it almost always returns to larger-than-life images of faces or other parts of the body. Since retiring, Van Dine has shifted the center of his artistic interests from architecture to oil painting. Whereas before he had to understand and respond to the physical and psychological needs of human beings when designing and creating building forms for them, now his paintings explore the physical and psychological elements of the people themselves.
British-born Mexican artist Sam Seeman paints “al fresco” directly onto white canvas with no grounds or washes underneath, and no layers or glazes on top. This sometimes gives his colors an “almost Florentine translucence.” His origins are in minimalism, and this lends his compositions and drawings a bold simplicity. His work has been exhibited in the United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Switzerland, Belgium, England, Italy, Germany, India and Pakistan.

Like many other genius painters before him, Artemio Sepulveda does not paint to live. He lives to paint. His expressionistic work derives from his soul’s and heart’s reflections on his experiences of life, his emotional upheavals, his joys and pains and the study of people, their cultures and lives. His work can be seen in a permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City.

Mike Kligerman’s work reflects his keen interest in the individual, not the generic. “Whether the creature is human or otherwise, I try to capture the personality in my painting,” he says. He uses tempera paints on paper, and the result is a matte finish that makes the colors seem richer. He studied painting and sculpture at the Instituto de Bellas Artes in Mexico City and received a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts and Music from Goddard College.

Gabriella Martin’s paintings depict many worlds; international in theme, they reflect an intense interest in the human condition. Her strokes and colors are bold and illuminating. Her style is primitive expressionism, rendered in acrylics. She has exhibited in England, Italy, the US and Mexico.

Lewis Kant, an Argentine-Mexican sculptor and jewelry designer, presents a series of figurative bronzes depicting couples in love and maternities. Here he captures the arrogance of the mother-to-be, and the couples merge into one being in a fusion that is sensual rather than erotic. He will present some of his prize-winning jewelry pieces in the exhibition.

Art Opening
Thursday, August 3, 6–9pm, Galería Casa Diana, Recreo 48

The determining force of our being
By Peter Leventhal

Painting takes many ways toward realizing itself in its completed image, the means of construction carrying out most of the content of the picture.

A portrait by Holbein and one by, say, Velazquez both have the intent of describing a person in his or her physical presence, but the means involved in their realization have vastly differing characters. It is in this character that the meaning reveals itself.

Looking at David Wright’s new paintings showing at Galería Atenea reminds me of how magical the development of a painting can be. The various marks of paint, the harmonies of color with their occasional dissonances, the drag and sweep of the brushwork arrive at a tapestry of sensation and description both provocative and revealing. The consummate handling of paint is beguiling and enchanting. Were it to stop there we would say how nice the work is and accept its facility.

In all artwork of quality, the method of making the work plays a great part. Painting, however, depends on meaning to become art, and meaning has to do with an identification with the world outside itself. Only the misguided genius of modernism could insist that art stay within the mind to play infinitely reductive games with ideas, more and more diminished over time. I mention this as David Wright speaks of his own journey away from modernism.

David is an artist whose command of his craft is considerably accomplished. Beyond this, David brings into his pictures the perception and identification of nature, not as an instrument of our pleasure but as the determining force of our own being. You see it in his vision of the dessicated desert landscapes, their planes stacked in thin veneers, and in the mysteries of his still lifes with their gorgeous dark tints where elements pop to the surface out of a mysterious background.

Translated into painting and filtered through his perception, David creates meaning, which is our only chance at redemption.

Art Opening, Paintings by David Wright
Saturday, August 5, 6–8pm, Galería Atenea, Jésus 2

Interview with Keith Miller, master painter

Generator Gallery: We’re used to seeing your flower paintings. Isn’t this seascape, then, a departure for you?

Keith Miller: Not at all. I became involved in painting seascapes back in the 70’s. I was inspired by my experience as a crew member aboard square-rigged sailing ships.

GG: That experience sounds very exciting. What about your New York harbor scenes?

KM: I began to paint the New York harbor scenes after my sailing experience. I was drawn to the maritime life of the city of New York. Now, most of the commercial freight traffic has moved to New Jersey.

GG: Were all the paintings in the show painted on-site?

KM: The smaller watercolors were painted on-site. The larger pieces are based on on-site drawings and photos, then completed in the studio.

GG: How long did it take you to paint your oil painting entitled “La Jungla”?

KM: “La Jungla” took about a month to complete, including a number of “revisits” to make revisions. It was completed over a period of three to four years.

GG: How long did it take you to paint “The Sketchbook” images?

KM: I stayed and worked on the island of Duyong Besar for about five weeks.

GG: How long did it take to paint the “Birch Point, Maine” seascapes?

KM: Each took me about a month to complete.

GG: Do you do preliminary pencil studies before you paint your watercolors?

KM: I block in the compositon quickly in pencil. I don’t like to waste time on preliminaries.

GG: Do you use a “frisket” in your watercolors to block out your whites?

KM: I never use a “frisket” on on-site watercolors, and only sparingly for larger “studio” watercolors.

GG: How many layers of watercolor do you apply?

KM: Usually I paint many layers of transparencies to achieve the saturation of color I am looking for.

GG: Do you teach classes in watercolor or oil?

KM: I no longer teach classes. I used to teach at the Sheridan College of Visual Art in Canada. I now devote my time entirely to my work.

GG: Do you work on several pieces at once?

KM: I prefer to concentrate on only one piece at a time.

GG: Would you consider selling your sketchbook from Malaysia?

KM: I consider the sketchbook a document of the cultural changes that have taken place and do not consider the book something I would want to part with. The traditional way of life on that island no longer exists. And I have changed as well.

Art Exhibit, Paintings by Keith Miller
Generator Gallery, Fábrica la Aurora, Calzada de la Aurora
Continues through August 2

Happy Birthday, Magenta

Artists typically are at the mercy of gallery owners whose focus is primarily financial. To be an artist in many cultures is to struggle, not only to create a personal vision, but also to exhibit their work. By taking control of their own exhibition space, artists have been able to show their work as they want. Members of Magenta searched for a space for a year before deciding on Umarán 32, on the corner of Zacateros.

They met weekly to come to agreement on the design and administration of the gallery. Not only did they choose the colors, install the lights, build a desk and a bodega and design a window space, but each member also works in the gallery to ensure that there is personal contact between artist and viewer.

Magenta owners Bonnie Griffith, Rebecca Peterson, Victoria Lynn Pierce, and Rosa Torres invite you to celebrate their one-year birthday August 2, from 6 to 9pm. Cake and bebidas provided.

Anniversary/Art Opening
Wednesday, August 2, 6–9pm, Magenta Gallery, Umarán 32