Lost works of an Afro-American reality and ephemeral fantasy worlds, By Margaret Failoni

Lost works of an Afro-American reality and ephemeral fantasy worlds
By Margaret Failoni (Mar 17, 2006)

Generator Gallery, located in the unique art and design center Fábrica La Aurora, has established a reputation for displaying powerful, contemporary art. This tradition continues with its latest exhibition, which includes previously unseen works by a famous Chicago muralist, spiritual and metaphoric works by Gary Slipper and Annemarie Slipper's uncharacteristic, poetic panels that were inspired by a fortuitous accident.

Private works of Mitchell Caton

Theodore Burns Mitchell, a.k.a. Mitchell Caton, died in 1998, at the age of 67. His son has authorized a limited selection of his private collection of his father's work to be displayed at the Generator Gallery.

Some of these paintings will be for sale in an effort to raise capital and awareness for further recognition of this African-American artist.

Each piece in "Mitchell Caton: An African-American Master of the 20th Century" is emblematic of the character and mood of the African-American community throughout his lifetime. In 1969, Caton was chosen among a group of several artists to repaint sections of the Wall of Respect in Chicago, the outdoor mural that kicked off a nationwide movement. By 1970, Caton had joined the insurgent Chicago Mural Group (now the Chicago Public Art Group). He began doing more public works and eventually received the first of many grants from the National Endowment of the Arts to continue painting community murals.

Caton's straightforward subject matter was a departure from the images of black pride that dominated African-American murals at the time. Caton, along with Chicano artists, painted a mural of Benito Juarez on Maxwell Street.

He did the mural in the office of the Chicago Defender, the local black newspaper, and murals in the Museum of Contemporary Arts, Regal Theater and the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

Caton's collaborations with fellow muralist Calvin Jones, another member of the Chicago Mural Group, gained him further acclaim. Between 1976 and 1987, the duo painted a number of murals together around Chicago, including the ground-breaking "In Defense of Ignorance," with its explicit critique of the black middle class, whose pursuit of wealth, the artists claimed, came at the price of cultural self-knowledge and the abandonment of the race.

Unbeknownst to the rest of the world, Caton created private works in his personal studio while painting his murals. These works, which have never been shown publicly, are powerful, dramatic and beautiful. The pieces vary in size and medium as well as in theme. This is an exciting opportunity to view the original works of a great African-American master artist for the first time.

The medieval scenarios in Hieronymus Bosch's "Paradise" and Dante Alighieri's metaphors in the Divine Comedy seem to be the cornucopia that feeds Gary Slipper's palette of marvelous happenings and human passions on a grand scale.Slipper's métier as a painter is skillfully married to the spiritual and metaphoric to reward the viewer with magical scenes of a paradise far from lost.

It is fraught with human frailties, perhaps, but also with great passions and pleasures. In Slipper's world of images even rage, appetites and worldly pleasures go hand in hand with the spiritual. All this may mislead you into thinking the imagery is a bit morose, but Slipper unobtrusively injects a generous dose of humor and even sex in his work, which makes it all the more fun and complex.

Slipper's painterly skills are matched by his drawing skills. He has been long known for his bright, candy- colored palette, so the black-and-white drawings are perhaps the most colorful of his recent oeuvre. Slipper's group of black-and-white works is colored by the life and passion within the pictures, and the viewer is gently led into the world of the work.

Annemarie Slipper's volcanic world

Annemarie Slipper's sculptural creations in clay and bronze are found in collections in Mexico, Canada and the United States. Her figurative fantasies run the gamut from smiling moons-her most famous-to regal busts and an array of friendly, tongue-in-cheek figures from the animal kingdom.

Therefore, the sudden appearance of beautifully executed abstract works on flat metal surfaces comes as a pleasant surprise. What could have been a disappointing event became a blessing. After a dense rain drenched some kiln lids, they were used to cover the burning ovens that fired her clay pieces. The results were a combination of oxidation and scorching that left interesting patterns. Surprised but pleased, the artist then went to work harnessing and guiding the process with beautiful results. There are Zen-like panels, flowing poetry, erupting volcanoes and streams of magma like rivers flowing across the metal surface.

These new works are vibrant, exciting and poetic.

The exhibit of these three artists' work runs until the second week of May. For further information contact Adriana Escobar at 154-9588 or

generatorgallery@cybermatsa.com.mx

Works by Annemarie Slipper, Gary Slipper & the late Mitchell Caton
Saturday, March 18, 5-8pm
Generator Gallery
Fábrica La Aurora

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Nava Grunfeld received a BFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia and a master's degree in art education from Smith College.Grunfeld is best known for her bold, color-saturated watercolors of still-life objects. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States, and she has participated in numerous national and international juried exhibitions.

According to Grunfeld, "Working on a grand scale in watercolor has allowed me to take a medium that is sometimes considered fussy and weak and show it capable of making a bold statement.

In recent years, I have concentrated on adding high-intensity color, strong light and an unusual perspective to my paintings of everyday objects, figures and florals.

Each painting is layered with many transparent veils of color, giving it an intense, color-saturated luminosity. What I paint is simple. How I put it together is not."

Saturated watercolors, exhibit by Nava Grunfeld
through April 2
Galería Atenea, Jesús 2

Jean-Paul Sartre once said of his friend Alberto Giacometti that he was "obsessed with the void.… Between things, between men, connections have been cut; emptiness filters through everywhere: each creature secretes his own void." At first glance at the sculptural work of Angelina Pérez Ibargüen an imaginative person might try to relate her thin, sometimes faceless, expressive and expressionless emaciated bodies with that of a slightly more figurative, colorful Giacometti, but that would be to err.

Ibargüen's message is not that of void, or separation from her audience or her audience's separation from one another. The exact opposite could be said of her work.

Ibargüen's world is a colorful realm of human caricatures in which everyone interacts, sometimes in tandem, sometimes in dream, mostly just in passing, but they acknowledge their own existence and that of their viewers and the fact that we all are in a state of constant change and passage.

Ibargüen has taken the role of visual historian and storyteller who incites her audience to consider life's greatest and lowest moments on our journey through it, and it is her hope to inspire us to embrace both equally.

For more information, contact the gallery at info@galeriaatelier.com

Art & Works, "Passages" by Angelina Pérez Ibargüen
Saturday, March 18, 6pm
Galería/atelier, Fábrica La Aurora
Calzada de la Aurora

Harriet Ballard's recent paintings in the exhibit "Connotations and Afterthoughts" represent a synthesis of early work and current concepts related to abstract space. Grids, squares, ladders and other forms imbedded in the subconscious focus the viewer's attention to Ballard's sense of whimsy and invention.

The experience of designing and building her own house in San Miguel has been a major influence on how she approaches painting and her use of motifs, such as "spaces within spaces" and combinations of patterns referenced from the use of Mexican tiles throughout her house.

Ballard spent most of her life before coming to San Miguel de Allende in North America and Europe, and her work was influenced by Ben Nicholson and the French cubists, as well as the American modernist painters. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Political Science, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Cleveland Institute of Art, and a Master of Fine Art from Instituto Allende in San Miguel.

Her recent paintings demonstrate a shift to an unmistakable Mexican influence: the sun, the culture, the colors, the randomness, the unstructured and the patterning. The figuration of her earlier paintings has been replaced by a more direct language, one that perhaps references her Mexican life, and the roots that she has put down here since 1989.

She has produced a significant body of work since that time, and she continues to grow and experiment with a creative output of paintings that seduce and delight her audience. Ballard's paintings are on display until April 4.

Art Exhibit, works by Harriet Ballard
Tuesday, March 21, 6-8pm
Galleria RaLuz, Plaza Principal 2

Santiago Corral's work can be described as "moments captured in time" and translated onto the canvas. His paintings record objects and visions of everyday life, day-to-day minutes, visions of places we have just been or where we will go.

Through his use of light and shadows, the artist transforms the "basic" and "ordinary" into a magical, three-dimensional moment.

Corral is a young painter from Mexico, of Spanish origin, currently living in San Miguel de Allende. His work has been exhibited in several venues, including New York City, The Diego Rivera Museum in Guanajuato and the Contemporary Art Museum in Oaxaca (MACO).

In 2004, he was selected as a finalist from among 1,500 participants at the Rufino Tamayo Bi-annual, held by The Rufino Tamayo Museum in Mexico City. His painting, "Angela Observing Van Gogh" (oil on canvas), will be on exhibit along with his current work.

Art Exhibit, works by Santiago Corral
Saturday, March 18, 7pm
Galería Indigo
Mesones 76

Painterly images

With its exhibition of paintings and drawings by Joaquín Sainz, Galería Wey inaugurates a series of regular exhibitions by painters of quality that are not normally accessible to the San Miguel public. Joaquín Sainz, originally from Mexico City, is a long-term resident of Tepotzlán.

He is prolific in his creation of abstract paintings that demonstrate, through their expression of a graphic sensibility, this artist's formal training in architecture. This exhibition, simply titled "Imagenes," offers a collection of works on wood and works on paper that demonstrate the mastery that Joaquin Sainz has over his chosen medium, a mixture of pigments and various types of metal leaf applied dry to the surface.

Art Exhibit, works by Joaquín Sainz
Saturday, March 18, 7pm
Galería Wey, Zacateros 24

Roz Farbush Annual Show & Birthday Party

Friday, March 17, 6:30pm

Galería San Miguel

Plaza Principal 14, across from the Jardín

Artemio Sepúlveda, originally from Rodríguez, Nuevo León, presents his recent work in acrylic and pastel. An art critic describes his work as follows: "The power of paint, the eternity of brush strokes, the willpower and force of mind, imagination and dedication prevail.

Artemio Sepúlveda does not paint to live, he lives to paint. He reflects on his experiences of life, his emotional upheavals, his joys and pains."

Along with Artemio Sepúlveda the gallery will exhibit the work of its permanent artists Pedro Friedeberg, Miguel Ángel Morales, Carmen Gutiérrez, Cyr Casas, Deborah Turbeville, Luis Espiridión and Laumuq.

Art Exhibit, works by Artemio Sepúlveda
Friday, March 17, 6-9pm
Galería Casa Diana
Recreo 48

Art Exhibit works by the youth of Centro de Crecimiento

The Centro de Crecimiento is a treatment and educational facility for children and young adults with mild to severe physical and mental disabilities. Art therapy is one of its many beneficial rehabilitative programs. The wonderful work of these young artists will be offered for sale to benefit the youth cared for at the Centro and provide much-needed supplies for the artists.

Art Exhibit works by the youth of Centro de Crecimiento
Thursday, March 23, 6pm
Bellas Artes

Residenciales La Fortuna is having an exhibit of one of their beautifully designed and decorated homes featuring the work of artist Cielo García.

García was born in Mexico City in 1974. From a very young age he had a great interest in the fine arts.

His father, Eduardo García Valseca, was a close friend of Rufino Tamayo, the famous contemporary Mexican artist. Rufino allowed Cielo and his father to observe him during painting sessions as long as they were very quiet. This was the beginning of the rest of Cielos's art career.

When García was 13 years of age he and his family moved to Washington D.C., where he studied art with Bart Simons. With Simons' guidance García was selected as one of the top 10 finalists in a national art competition sponsored by the National Foundation of Advancement in the Arts. García went on to earn a full scholarship to the Corcoran School of Art.

García's true love is travel. As soon as he had a chance he went to Europe, where he lived and traveled for over a year. Afterward he returned to Mexico and traveled through South America. Through his travels he cultivated an appreciation for the colors, flavors and smells of diverse cultures that has enriched his life with appreciation for different ways of life. This love for other cultures is reflected in his intense colors and the magic he captures from the mystical indigenous cultures of South America. He feels especially connected to the Huicholes, and he has been accepted into their ceremonies since the age of 15.

García has completed commissions for several murals in cities such as San Luis, Zacatecas, Mexico City, San Miguel de Allende, Miami and, most recently, Austin, Texas. Now you can find him in his own gallery in San Miguel, where he lives and produces pieces for local, national and international exhibition.

Art Exhibit, works by Cielo García
Saturday, March 18, 6-8pm
Cnr Orizaba & Privada San Felipe
Col. San Antonio