Two cultures and two generations meet in exceptional show
Art show
Works by Yumiko Murai and Agapito Jiménez
Sat, July 14, noon
Instituto Allende Gallery
Instituto Allende
Ancha de San Antonio 22
What do you get when you bring two ancient cultures together? Probably a show like the one Instituto Allende Art and Spanish School is offering in their gallery at noon on Saturday, July 14.
Japanese-born Yumiko Murai has been learning traditional Mexican weaving techniques for several months now, and is ready to show her work, which, of course, is imbued with tints of her own culture.
Murai, who previously studied history, art and film-making, first came to San Miguel in 2005 to learn traditional Mexican weaving. Earlier this year, she came back to continue the learning process.
“I find that loom-weaving allows me to focus, as it requires my full attention. Besides, it offers the possibility of unimaginable results,” says Murai. “When I go back to Japan, I will continue weaving; I will probably do it the rest of my life.”
The 28-year-old artist has been working with natural dyes, which come from fruits, vegetables, trees, flowers and insects. “People in Japan show great surprise when they see these colors. They are different from what people there are familiar with. Also, woven rugs are not exactly common in Japan.”
Her instructor, Agapito Jiménez, also participates in the show.
Jiménez was born on a ranch just off the road to Pozos, and came to San Miguel when he was a child. An uncle of his, Faustino Vizcaya, was instrumental in his joining the Instituto Allende in 1965, first as a handyman, and later as an apprentice to master weavers Porfirio and Julián López. He proved to be a fast learner and at age 16, he was already weaving his own pieces.
Jiménez became a weaving instructor in 1984 and since then he has taught more than 2,000 students. Over the last six to eight months, he has been working with Instituto BFA students in the research and production of natural dyes. “We’ll use anything: beets, purple onions, red prickly pears, cinnamon, hibiscus flowers, eucalyptus, you name it. Some work fine, others fade as soon as we let them dry in the sun. But we keep trying. Natural colors are less saturated than artificial ones, and they convey a feeling of peace.”
The show features works by both artists, so viewers will be able to compare the vision of each culture.
Intense color, mixed media in Jenya show
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Art opening Works by Judith Jenya Thurs, July 19, 6-8pm Galería Bordello at Casa de la Turca Organos 19 |
Bright primary colors mixed with shadows give familiar images seen though a unique eye a new taste and feeling. In her first show in San Miguel, Judith Jenya’s mixed media pieces are a delightful vivid look at San Miguel and nearby areas. Her work has a direct appeal with intense colors and a naïve, expressionist style mixed with sophisticated use of design and form. Each piece is a look at a moment in time or a timeless moment that will bring a sense of recognition and delight to the viewer.
The landscapes, people, plants and flowers of San Miguel and the campo are here together with people at the beach and portraits.
Jenya experiments with a mix of gauche, watercolor, acrylic paint with pencil, ink, pastel and oil pastel. Each painting uses a different mix of these media on watercolor paper. In her canvas paintings she uses layered acrylics mixed with less dense paints to achieve a depth of color and immediacy.
Jenya’s return to a direct, somewhat figurative style reflects the change in her world vision and delight in her life and home in San Miguel. She is inspired to paint in this very direct way by the richness of color, life, and the beauty of the environment here.
The viewer is drawn into the work and by the line and color and finds again the pleasure of seeing the familiar in a new way. While color has always been the hallmark of her work, the clarity of light here in the highlands of Mexico gives her paintings a different dimension with their use of light and shadow.
She has been painting since her undergraduate studies at UC Berkeley and the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts and later Harvard University. She has been a teacher of art and a fellow at the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, DC. She founded and directed Global Children’s Organization, a humanitarian aid organization helping children of war. She used art as one of the tools for healing during the wars in Bosnia and Kosova. While personally experiencing much of the horror of war, she came to the conclusion that beauty and love are the two essentials of life and reflects that in her art.
She has expressed herself through many of the arts including writing, photography and acting and has been a professional in several fields. Throughout her lifetime her constant desire to create beauty has been met through her paintings. Her other visual works include photography and expressionist paintings of nature, flowers, landscapes and drawings of nudes.
She has been in one-woman shows in Honolulu, San Francisco and Sarajevo and group shows in London, Boston, Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, Berkeley, Zagreb and Taos. Her work is in collections in the United States, Europe and Mexico. She has won both national and international awards.
A portion of the sales of this show will be donated for the ongoing work of Global Children’s Organization.
Getting around—Portraits and abstracts at Aspen Gallery
By Anja Maser
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Art showing
July 20–21, 5–7pm
Aspen Gallery
Mesones 74 154-4441 |
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Like currency, paintings have a way of getting around.
A few years ago, a woman who had adopted San Miguel as her second home visited an old friend, an artist-in-residence at a small local hotel. He showed her around, and while walking down one of the long external corridors she tripped over a painting which had blown over in the wind. The painter, Jeff Coffin, explained that he had used the corridor to view his abstract painting from afar.
Without asking for the price she stated, “I have to have that,” bought it and had it shipped to her home in San Francisco. When she moved a few years later there was no room for the painting in her new apartment. Being a member of the MOMA board of trustees, she put it up for the museum’s biennial auction.
The Mexican Museum of San Francisco approached the benefactors who had bought the painting to ask if they would be interested in donating it to the new museum when it is completed in three years. They agreed. While one wonders where all those paintings bought and sold worldwide end up, this one kept its connection to Mexico.
Coffin studied painting in Madrid, Stockholm, Paris, Amsterdam and Mexico City, his style influenced by the Fauvist and Expressionist movements. He is listed in Latin American and Caribbean Artists of the Modern Era, a comprehensive reference book to more than 12,700 painters, sculptors, graphic artists and architects in Latin America and the Caribbean region who were active during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Aspen Gallery, Mesones 74, hosts an opening of Coffin’s work over the course of two evenings, July 20 and 21, 5 to 7pm. Alongside the portraits of San Miguel women, what is considered Coffin’s finest large abstract will be displayed. For information, call the gallery at 154-4441.
New galleries at Fábrica la Aurora
By Edward Swift
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Gallery openings Sat, July 14, 6–9pm Galería Edward Swift & More Fábrica la Aurora |
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Four new galleries have opened in the sometimes forgotten northeast wing of Fábrica la Aurora, and each is celebrating with a grand opening on the evening of July 14. One of the new galleries is mine, Galería Edward Swift For 15 years I showed my work at the 2/20 Gallery in New York City, and now that I have my own space, I’m bringing the work of four artists from the 2/20 to San Miguel: Miguel Herrera (Chile), Christine Amarger (France), Madeleine Gekiere (Switzerland) and Alan Wells (Oregon). In addition to these four artists, the assemblages of San Miguel’s Hope Swann and the necklaces of Dallas photographer Lynn Lennon are on display.
Most of these artists have been affiliated with the 2/20 Gallery, owned by Miguel Herrera. A generous man of 72 years, and a friend to all artists, he is known for his etchings of brooding flowers and equally brooding literary personalities. During his down time he sits in his Chelsea gallery and draws either on paper or on metal plates. His printing press is in the rear of the gallery, and if he’s not using it, his wife Christine Amarger usually is. While printing the “Cat on the Piano” hanging in my gallery, Amarger got a finger caught under the printing press roller. The finger was smashed and half of it was surgically removed. Naturally that particular print is terribly expensive—probably unaffordable even to the wealthiest cat-lovers in San Miguel.
The assemblages of Madeleine Gekiere, constructed of silk stockings, balls and boxes, may not be to everyone’s liking but they are unique, even in San Miguel. Not once in her 86 years has she stopped painting, drawing and making sculpture out of odds-and-ends. On the back wall of the gallery are the assemblages of Hope Swann who celebrates the spirit in all things animate and inanimate. She infuses her work with the “divine feminine” without robbing the found objects of their innate mystery and energy. Above Swann’s assemblages are Alan Well’s nine drawings of plus signs and rows of numbers. The drawings are about casualties of wars or possibly diseases that have yet to be conquered.
As for me, I’m showing new muñecas, boxes and “Nightmare Chasers,” small figures so grotesque and ridiculous they’re guaranteed to chase away your worst dreams. Just think, in Section C of Fábrica la Aurora you can visit Buenas Noches to buy fine sheets, pillows and beds that can be considered works of art, and across the hall you can buy “Nightmare Chasers.” Who could ask for more?
The galleries and studios of Marilo Carral, Emily Severinsen, Zoho and Factoría, also have openings on the evening of July 14. Factoría is composed of five artists: the painters Magdiel Pérez and Mai Onno, and the sculptors Miguel Ángel Morales Sálenz, the late Lothar Kestenbaum, and his son, David, who holds a degree in art history from the University of Texas. He once worked in a blacksmith’s shop in the US and currently runs a studio/foundry in San Miguel Viejo. All five Factoría artists have enjoyed much success in Mexico, the US, Canada and Europe. Pérez, represented in the Museo Alfredo Zalce in Morelia, shared first place in the subway mural contest in Nuremburg. In some of his latest paintings he creates a dream-like environment by combining wax and sand. The colorful and soulful paintings of Mai Onno have been shown in the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico, and the sculpture of Miguel Ángel Morales is represented in public spaces in Europe. Morales works in a variety of media, and like Swann, he is cap
able of giving a new life and meaning to the most ordinary objects, such as coat hangers. The paintings of Marilo Carral celebrate color, light and the beauty of the countryside. Exuberant expressions of joy, her work has been compared to Matisse, Bonnard and Duffy. Her gallery is located between Factoría and Emily Severinsen’s studio. Severinsen is an artist whose sense of color forms the through line to all her paintings whether abstract or figurative. She uses bold areas of color to capture people and animals in moments of repose or action. On coming to San Miguel she studied Zen drawing with Edgardo Kerlegand of the Barro Gallery.
Zoho, also in the Northeast Wing Section C, is not a new gallery but the figurative exhibition opening on Saturday is new. Mary Breneman, and Pam Lacayo will be showing drawings and paintings and Marshall Dackert will be showing photographs.
Five Points of View
By Cati Demme
Photography exhibit
Works by Norma Suárez
Sat, July 14, 5–8pm
Generator Gallery
Fábrica la Aurora
154-9588
Norma Suarez, photographer, is a master of both technique and subject matter. Her highly developed sensitivity, perception and intuition combined with her vast knowledge of and experience with all forms of photography enables her to transcend to a level of genius all viewers will surely recognize and hold in awe.
Originally trained as a biochemical engineer, she began working with photography in 1996. She has exhibited close to home in SMA, and as far away as Spain, Argentina and Boston. She has received a variety of grants, including one to work as a participant in the prestigious Santa Fe Photo Workshop 2001. Her work has been published in a variety of magazines, including Artes de Mexico in 2001 and 2002.
Her current exhibit is at the Generator Gallery from July 14 to August 29. For more information call the gallery at 154-9588 or contact:
generatorgallerysma@yahoo.com.mx.