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masters of the imagination, Latin American artists have always
captivated us and found resonance in our lives. The Latin American
Art Exhibition at Agora Gallery is the first of what we hope will become
an important yearly event. This exciting exhibition features some of
the most compelling and thought provoking work available today. Please
join us in celebrating the following artists and their art at the opening
of this significant event on Thursday, March 7th. 6-8pm. |
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| March
7 - 27, 2002 Reception March 7th, 6-8pm |
Agora
Gallery 415 West Broadway,
5th Floor South, New York, NY 10012 For more information, call 212.226.4151 or email info@Agora-Gallery.com |
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Patricio Bonta |
"My work certainly belongs to the South Cone of Latin America, what is known as the River Plate, where the tango dance and the literature also reflect the rather sad and dreaming character of our people, which was carved by the massive Italian and Spanish immigration. People who had to run from war and famine, that found a homeland in our shores, but always long to return to their origins. Some critics such as Miguel FrÌas relate the formal aspects of my work to the strong neo-expressionist movement that started in the 70's in Argentina with De la Vega, MacciÛ, and NoÈ as the main interpreters. They also find some influence deriving from the constructivist school founded by the Uruguayan Torres Garcia. I share with the neo-expressionist artists a strong concern for the materiality of painting in itself where flatness, texture, trace, and color become an extension of the expression of the artist. I believe in the technical training of painters as a fundamental qualifier in the process of painting. However, the content and creative process of my work differ radically from those of the neo-expressionists. My selection of images is anarchic, spontaneous and playful where all the elements collide in a non-hierarchic space of parallel but at the same time layered universes." |
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Karen Deicas |
"I paint believing that the act of creating and one's reactions to art should be near subconscious perceptions, causing ones instincts to come alive. The movement of my body and the subtle rhythm of shifting forms of color lead the way as I use different sensations of light and patchwork to allow the elements on the canvas to dialogue with one another. These subtle instincts, I tend to believe, are clearly linked to my past, to my upbringing and to my heritage. I was born and raised in Mexico City and have traveled throughout Central and South America extensively. I find myself drawn to the unique colors, sounds, scents and ways of the region, as well as to the warmth and sincerity of it's people. I love the patterns of the land, the rush of the city, the majesty of the ocean, and the wild energy of the sun. This, coupled with the rich, vibrant and heartfelt works of the Latin American artists, many of whose works captivated me from a very young age, has left an indelible mark in me, and consequently, my art. Though for the sake of exploration and expression I tend to abandon such easily recognizable imagery when I paint, these images from my past remain present." |
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Simone DeSousa |
Working in a distinctly Abstract Expressionist vein, Brazilian-born painter Simone DeSousa references artists like Mondrian, Rothko and Hodgkin while creating a unique individual style. Her use of architectural lines distinguishes DeSousaís compositions from the more ethereal works of many other painters practicing a similar approach. She utilizes a variety of color and diverse ideas in her work, reflecting the fusion of cultures, peoples, and ideas that is a natural part of her native Brazil. It is not surprising to learn that DeSousa is part of a studio collective that includes sculpture as well as design and fabrication. Like those disciplines, DeSousaís work sets out to explore and define the structure of space. Color is used only secondarily - as a means rather than an end, and yet her color choices are still derived from her roots in South America. DeSousa sees her paintings as documenting the ever-shifting balance between order and chaos: ìthe eye moves as it has been trained: to feel the weight of objects and spaces in search of balance, to deconstruct and reorder relationships between the elements to instigate certain perceptions.î DeSousaís paintings are born of repeated adjustments and alterations in pursuit of a perfect formal and aesthetic union. |
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Leonardo |
Otherworldly figures emerge crisply from Leonardo Faillace's exquisitely detailed paintings. The mythical settings, with verdant forests or quiet bodies of water, convey the same magical spirit of such artists as Dali or Magritte. Faillace's paintings are at once fantastic and realistic, reflecting his experience in the theater and scenography. Faillace was introduced to art by his painter grandfather, to the theater by his father and continued his education at the School of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires with painters Jorge Tapia and Armando Donnini. He traveled in Spain, Italy, France, England and Scotland, becoming exposed to the masters and broadening his own style. He has won prizes at the Salon of Ornamental Art, San Isidro Salon and Autumn Salon Nucleo de Arte Gallery and shown at the Minervis Gallery, Buenos Aires, the Museum of Art Joinville, Brazil and at the Secretary of State of Culture in Brazil. |
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Jorge |
Born
in Caracas, Venezuela in 1958. Jorge Humberto GonÁalves-Romero's
artwork reflects his free view of painting. Through strong colors and shapes, he seeks to convey the strength and
power of men and women, who end up being one single entity. These shapes
do not have the expressions that may be found in real faces or bodies.
His aim is to reflect their personalities and to represent their inner
expressions and their souls. GonÁalves-Romero's work revolves around the study of light. He tries to explore different ways of contrasting tones, in order to enhance the energy of the sun and the beauty of shadows. GonÁalves-Romero has dedicated eight years of his life to research and development. He developed a mathematical method for the calculation of the LU decomposition, based on the Gauss algorithm. He painted it onto an array of parallel computers, in order to better exploit the latency of the calculation with a higher utilization of the hardware computational space. The development of this method was only possible because of his capacity for graphic abstraction, which is also used in his paintings, which are, in turn, a journey into his alpha world. "Art gives me the balance in life. Things can be explained up to a certain point, which is exactly the border between logic and art." |
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Jaime |
"Painting is one of the most universal forms for expressing the beauty and complexity of life; it has no language barriers or restricting boundaries. I believe in celebrating human life by presenting the world with paintings that contain beauty: in color, subject matter and technical integrity. At times, I feel particular concern for issues and I include symbols and figures to express these emotions and to encourage thought or discussion. My country of birth has been the motivation for several paintings particularly regarding women and their complex and subjugated position in our culture. During the eighties, several of my pieces expressed concern for the obvious materialism of the time. With non-violent expressionism, I feel I can stimulate sensitivity to issues that are surrounding us and that we may have become numb to. My work has been influenced by the work of my instructors: in various methods of painting by Sidney Goodman, Arthur Decosta, and Lou Sloan. My approach to new work and creativity has always been influenced by Jody Pinto, Will Barnett and Jimmy Lourdes' work and by their instruction and critiques." |
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Fernando Moreno |
"My language is form, color and texture. I paint neither messages, nor anecdotes, nor histories; this I leave for the world of Literature. While painting, I do not think... I release my subconscious and let it lead me. It is after painting that I find meanings; free associations concerning my childhood, culture...my roots. I believe that life is transformation and evolution; Pre-Hispanic world, Spanish and French blood, revolution and industry. Continuous dialectic movement of death and Renaissance... this is what I paint. Forms that change, forms in progress... forms of nothing and everything. In my painting the forms are not complete. Sometimes they are broken, vandalized. Opaque forms and shining surfaces. Laceration, smoothness; pretending this way, an expression of deterioration or dereliction. Always with a clear forceful and powerful presence. Thick oil, liquid oil, engravings, spatula, spots, straight lines, scrawls, letters, words, numbers and sometimes phrases. Meaning of absurd, congruence of absurd, colors and textures of soil... of stone; black, sienna, indigo ...light and shade, order and chaos, order of the chaos. At the end oil and paper, this is my painting." |
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Silvia Pace |
"It is very difficult to speak of Latin American Art, because the histories and cultures of the different countries of the region produced processes, sometimes parallel and other times opposed, giving place to unequal growths. However, there was common sign starting from the last decades of the 20th century: the incorporation of modernity. It could be said that urban modernization, immigration and their cosmopolitan expressions are common characteristics in Latin American Art, tracing a cultural map that is the result of the interaction between the European tradition and the different local traditions. Each one of these cultures was registering its own path yet with these common characteristics. I believe I am representative of this tradition. Being a European immigrants' daughter but having grown up in a Latin American country, my artistic influences certainly come from the old continent while adding local accents; the saturation of colors, the compositional choices and the postmodern nature of my work." |
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Francesca Rota-Loiseau |
"I have always been sensitive to what people express through their eyes. People's gazes often are more revealing than words and that is why they fascinate me. I like to think that I get to my subject's soul when I am able to capture his/her glance through my painting. I realized that my memory had kept hundreds of eyes that suddenly flooded my memory. Charcoal, pastel, oil and later acrylic let me bring back the powerful stares of the people that live on the Pacific coast of Ecuador, Esmeraldas, and inland Chota. Later I needed to rejuvenate and revive the strength in the eyes of significant people and friends. Since I was a little kid, I dreamt of being a painter. I studied in the Instituto de PromociÛn ArtistÌstica / Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana. Later in 1990, I studied in Taller de Arte CayÛn until 1997. My family is Italian and I was born in 1958 in Quito, Ecuador." |
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Dania Sierra |
"One of the many threads that tie Latin American Art and artists is the rich use of color as a means to convey emotions and the spiritual world that revolves around us. As with many Latin American artists, the native roots of spirituality have been deeply imbedded in me as well as childhood dreams, experiences and beliefs, which resurface and unveil themselves through my own distinctive style. In my imagery, I depict this spirituality of unspoken words and hidden whispers through images of birds, amorphous figures and textured abstract surroundings. My themes consist of, strong connections with nature, animals, nurturing, symbolic rituals, sacred sanctuaries, love, freedom of spirit and the language of our natural surroundings and its communication with the modern world. . I want my paintings to raise our level of awareness of this spiritual world that exists around us and within us. Most people in our cultural today have become unattached from this world which is the voice and breath of our existence and have stripped their true inner core, leaving them shallow, void and with no path to enlightenment." |
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Alejandra Tolosa |
Pre-Colombian
forms dominate Alejandra Tolosa`s art work. By using weathered earth
tones and mixed media, she creates the illusion of aging. The
intentionally coarse nature of her lines and deft crudity of the forms
underlines this striking effect. The forms themselves exist sometimes as
recognizable human forms, sometimes as magical abstractions, but each is
endowed with a stoic strength. From them she rescues the synthesis
of their designs and use them to preserve their cultural identity. With these forms, she gives new life to a history of the development of Latino-American culture. By digging below the veneered historic layers of colonial Argentina, Tolosa seeks to get at a more fundamental beginning to her people. Her use of texture, drawing and colors doubles as a way of showing her strong feelings for that ancient connection. Tolosa graduated from State Art School in CÛrdoba, Argentina and she obtained the Post Graduated Degree in Visual and Plastic Art from the National University of CÛrdoba. Since 1995 she has participated in several National and International Exhibitions and has received several important prizes. |
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Sabrina
VillaseÒor |
Latin American artist Sabrina VillaseÒor's heritage coupled with her very particular interest in Mexican tradition and art have been major players in her development as a painter. Every year she's invited to exhibit her interpretive piece for the Altar for the Dead, an important cultural event, in an assortment of locations throughout Mexico. She attended the Moscow Fine Arts Academy in Russia after her formal training in Barcelona, Spain was completed. She also attended painting workshops at the Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporaneo, taught by luminaries of the Mexican art world, including Jose Luis Cuevas. VillaseÒor's paintings appear to have been gleaned from her subconscious, these ephemeral apparitions, with only mere touches of color, paled carmine to blush and black splashes, and the concentration of positive and negative space has the feel of a meditative Asian scroll painting. The paintings and the artist's internal process she has summarized in, Embodiment (Body Dialogue), " Exploring the intrinsic maze of the self, one develops a sensitivity towards the intangible and the rest among the parts that conform the essence of reality. My expression has focused on the human body, at times, portrayed in an abstract form, working basically with charcoal, sand, soft pastel, oil paint, acrylic and collage." |
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Elsa Zarduz |
Mexican painter Elsa Zarduz uses her extensive training and experience to create works that are both enigmatic and direct. Her use of line and shading in her figurative work translates to muscular bodies composed across the borders of her canvases. Zarduz's often leaves the faces of her figures either obscure or cropped out of the painting, a choice that makes the human body into the subject of her work. Her palette of powerful earth colors and ochre fits to her strong lines and further enhances the sinewy feel of her work. An accomplished muralist in addition to her status as a painter, Zarduz shows the obvious influence of Jose Clemente Orozco with both the gesture and style of her work. Like Orozco, Zarduz spent some of her formative years as an artist in the United States in addition to her extensive study and work in Mexico. Having studied at Parson's School of Design and the Art Student's League in New York, Zarduz went on to study painting and sculpture at the Institute Allende in Guanajuato; oil painting with Eduardo PÌzarro in Mexico City; muralism with Margarita Magdaleno in the art cultural center in QuerÈtato; and even book restoration with the Museum of Juan Pablos in Mexico City, among others. She has participated in numerous exhibitions and for the past five years she has taught illustration, art history and drawing classes to secondary and primary school students. |
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