Essentially YAM, Sept 8, 2006  “Esencial”, Tuesday, September 12, 7pm YAM Gallery, Ancha de San Antonio 20, Int. 1

YAM gallery’s next exhibition, “Esencial,” is curated from the paintings made by the children who participate in Arte en el Parque, a community-based public art program directed by the painter Nina Wisniewski. 

The program began a year ago and is continuing every Saturday morning in the kiosk of Benito Juarez Park. The idea is a simple one: give the children of San Miguel (age range 2 to 12 years) a place, an opportunity, the materials and the guidance to paint. The kiosk becomes “el mundo del arte”: the paint, brushes and sponges offer the means to “plasmar” (create) and the children themselves bring their dedication and pure access to the creative process during each weekly two-hour session.

This program has reached nearly 1,000 children to date, many of them regular participants. They come with their parents, relatives and siblings to paint in the natural outdoor environment of the park.

These children paint without hesitation, enjoying the purity of simply painting—making their personal marks on paper, freeing their creative spirits in colors, movement and found imagery.

The results are amazing! These paintings contain the essential elements of art making in its purest form—honest, direct, paint application—children expressing themselves in their present realities.

The 60 paintings selected for the exhibit were made by children under 9 years old, and all have abstract content and composition. Proceeds from the sales of these works will be shared by the project and the artists. 

The future of any place is found in its children. Their ability to create can only enhance the already rich and historic culture of San Miguel de Allende.

Interview with José Luis Arias 
By Mary Quagliata

The artist José Luis Arias has opened his studio at Correo 73. The walls are entirely covered with finished canvases and works in progress, complex surreal compositions in oil and acrylic.

Many are of carefully modeled machine parts, found industrial objects entwined with plants or silhouettes of human forms. These disjointed objects float in dreamlike space. 

Arias is originally from Sinaloa and is a graduate of the University of Monte Morelos. He has a BA in theology and an MFA in painting. He works dedicatedly, with his studio doors open to the street. As I pass by today, I decide to ask him a few questions….

MQ: Please tell me what concepts motivate your work.

JA: The most important thing that I want to do is to reveal the tensions between the life of the machine and the natural world. I’m expressing the struggle between opposites. Opposites exist and always will: good and bad, light and dark, war and peace, the infinite and the finite. I am examining the interrelationship of nature with technology, discovering the machine in nature, and nature in the machine. You see, my painting has a content that expresses values.

MQ: What values do you mean to show in your work?

JA: First, I want to demonstrate the quality of life that I feel and experience. I try to express that sense of freedom, of liberty and of dignity. Each individual has the potential to create harmony or stress. I think we need to be aware of our power and to wield it consciously. I wonder: Can a balance be found within opposite forces? Do we gain peace by sacrificing something else that we love or admire?

MQ: Who and what are your major artistic influences?

JA: Surrealism and the surrealists, notably DeChirico for shadow. Leger is important to me—his solid, industrial form—and the Dadaist Duchamp with his belief in the value of the found object. Picasso and Max Ernst have influenced me a great deal as well. MQ: What plastic and aesthetic values and techniques characterize your work?

JA: I like to play with positive and negative space and strong color, strong contrasts. I love to paint very sculpturally…to carefully model my forms. Often I will make a form in clay, then paint that form on a canvas, then return to modeling in 3-D again. It is for me a circle of work but also of self-discovery, very personal and very enjoyable. 

Jose Arias invites you to visit him in his taller, Correo 73. He can be reached at 044-415-113-0587.