Art from the people
By Sam Decker January 4, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Art Opening Artemio Sepúlveda Fri, Jan 4, 5–8pm Galería Casa Diana Recreo 48

Artemio Sepúlveda’s works are figurative, rendered in pastels and mixed media, and while the subject matter appears to be the human from, it is actually the human experience that the artist endeavors to convey to his viewers. Says Sepúlveda: “To express what we are, this is the most important thing, no matter where we live. We are human beings, and being such, we need to communicate this oneness with others.” His figures may be soft and dreamlike in quality, as a result of his skillful manipulation of tonal ranges, or strong and abrupt due to his use of large solid color forms.

Galería Casa Diana will inaugurate an individual show on Friday, January 4, presenting the work of Artemio Sepulveda. Sepúlveda’s San Miguel exhibition will feature his newest body of work, focused on the subjects of maternity and womanhood. The collection encompasses portraits of mothers with their children and images of prostitutes, women whom the artist imbues with strength, fantastic grotesqueness, and unparalleled beauty. “Throughout my career I have always been dedicated to social issues. I deal with prostitution not only through their images, but through politics as well,” says Sepúlveda, in an attempt to explain his commitment to his subjects.

The artist was born into a mining family near the Texas border in the tiny village of Los Rodriguez, Nuevo Leon. His childhood was one of poverty and hardship—he remembers his father and brothers, who were union workers, engaged in a long hunger strike. Then at 14 he moved with his family to Mexico City, a change that, initially, yielded no great improvement in circumstances. Upon discovering that he was still too young to attend art school, Sepúlveda worked as a carpenter and then as an illegal farm worker in Arizona. After a year of toiling, he was accepted at Las Esmeralda, an art school in Mexico City on a three-year scholarship, where he studied under the great painter, Carlos Orozco Romero, who would have a momentous influence on the impressionable Sepúlveda. Years later, after Romero’s retirement from teaching, the two artists worked side-by-side in Orozco’s studio.

In 1955, Sepúlveda left his former teacher to commence his life as an independent artist. Two years later he was commissioned to do a portrait of theater director Fernando Wagner’s daughter. This painting entitled, The Timid One, is currently on display at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Mexico City. Unfortunately, due perhaps to Sepúlveda’s taciturn nature or to the lack of importance he attributed to the marketing of his work, the artist’s financial problems eventually became so critical that he was forced to spend a year under the total patronage and control of Manuel Suarez, living in servant’s quarters at the benefactor’s Hotel Casino de la Selva in Cernavaca. During this year he produced 167 paintings and drawings in exchange for room and board.

In the late seventies, Sepúlveda moved to California and taught at the Fine Art Institute in Laguna Beach, and it was here that he finally achieved critical acclaim for his work. He returned to Mexico in 1999, and has since been showing in Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta and San Miguel de Allende. Presently he lives in the city of Tequisquiapan, where he works from his studio and teaches privately.

Sepúlveda’s many struggles have prepared him to identify with the lower and middle class. His work portrays a keen understanding of those who are exploited, vulnerable and weak. The artist does not approach his subjects from the outside and impose a transcendental meaning, but works strictly from the interior, translating his knowledge of their worn bodies and afflicted souls into masterful works of art.

All are invited to the cocktail reception, where you can meet this extraordinary painter. “I have never given a solo show before,” says Carmen Gutierrez, owner of Galería Casa Diana, “but Sepúlveda’s work is so amazing and so important that I’m willing to take a risk.” The show will be open until February 2.

Sam Decker is a recent graduate of Oberlin College and is currently interning in the editorial department of Atención.

Profiles at the Windmill
By Nina Wisniewski

Javier Hernandez of Bilbao, capital of Bizkaia province in the Basque Country of Spain, has been making jewelry for the past 11 years inspired by his travels, contact with indigenous peoples and his desire to learn more about his craft.

Javier’s interest in making jewelry began during a trip to Guatemala in 1996, where he lived for a year in the highland region of Nebaj, observing the artisans and becoming fascinated with their creative processes and use of materials. He still speaks affectionately of his “family” in Nebaj.

Hernandez also has traveled and resided in the desert community of San Luis Potosí, forming strong connections with artisans and jewelers there.

From 1997 to 1999, he studied jewelry-making at UNAM (the National University) in Taxco. His attraction to the jewelry-making process has a “soulful connection”; he is drawn to constructing his forms using metals, semiprecious stones and prehistoric materials like meteorites and fossils. He began showing and selling his work in Barra de Navidad and Manzanillo after completing his studies at UNAM.

In 1999 returned to Bilbao to practice all that he had learned. He participated in art festivals and shows in Spain and the Basque Country and received first prize in the Ibiza Art Fair in 2000. 

In 2006 his artist friends in Taxco invited him to come back to Mexico and visit San Miguel. Here he met Patricia and fell in love, and San Miguel has become his home. He continues to develop his work and participates in art shows and fairs here.

This year he received second place in the Jewelry Expo and Competition at Bellas Artes for a necklace of constructed metals using meteorites.

In 2007 he met Marcel Manuel and Mira Silverman, the founders of Molinos de Viento, and liked the idea of starting an artist collective. His desires for the collective include collaboration between jewelers and artists, to share techniques and designs, to learn more and to teach each other.

Molinos de Viento is located at Mesones 79 (near Hidalgo). This collective of artists presents what they do with love and serves the community through education, inspiration and cultural activities and events.

Nina Wisniewski holds an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and exhibits her work in museums in Mexico. She is the founder of the community-based children’s art program, Art in the Park, a member of the Molinos de Viento collective and a permanent San Miguel resident.

Following an artist’s true calling

Art Opening Alan Glueckert Sat, Jan 5, 6–9pm Ar & Ar, Galería-Estudio Fabrica la Aurora

Photographer Alan Glueckert was born in New York, but currently lives in Boca Raton, Florida. His passion since he was very young has been the visual arts. 

As a small boy, his father served as his greatest inspiration, always encouraging him to both appreciate and create art. During World War II, his father’s medium changed from canvas and paints to film and light, as he brought home remarkable photographs from Africa, Egypt and Europe.

Glueckert spent hour upon hour browsing through his father’s perception of the world through his camera. To this day, he is inspired by an early memory of his father surprising him on his seventh birthday with his very first camera.

It was a simple Kodak Brownie box camera, but for him it was much more than that. His father died when he was very young, leaving only his photographic interpretations for him.

Glueckert has devoted much of his life endeavoring to share his love of the visual arts with others. As an educator, he spent 31 years teaching students the essentials that art and creativity play in enriching our lives. 

He holds a bachelor’s degree, a professional diploma and two master’s degrees in art and education. He worked as an adjunct professor at Long Island University and as an art teacher in Dix Hills, New York.

However, he has always felt that capturing images through photography was his true calling. 

Each of his photographs illustrates his creativity and solicits a reaction in the viewer. It is when the viewer takes interest in a photograph and can relate to the image in a personal or even intangible way, that the photograph truly fulfills its purpose.

The Heart of Frida opens in Querétaro


Art Opening 
The Heart of Frida
Talk by Arturo Garcia Bustos & Rina Lazo
Fri, Jan 11


Exhibition
Tues–Sun, Jan 12–Feb 24, 10am–6pm 
Museo de Arte de Querétaro
Allende Sur 14, Centro

The Heart of Frida, a collection of emotional and poignant letters and drawings of Mexico’s most famous woman artist, will reopen this winter at the Querétaro Art Museum, its first museum showing. The January 11 opening event will feature a short talk by Arturo Garcia Bustos and his wife Rina Lazo. Bustos, who authenticated the collection, is one of Los Fridos (students of Frida Kahlo) and a distinguished Mexican muralist. 

For more information on the collection, go to www.frida2007.com  or call collection manager Kristopher Kegel at 011 52 (415) 152-6551.