Tag: mexico

Phallic Figure

Phallic Figure, Burnished Ceramic with Slip and Incised Decoration, 200 BC-500 AD, Colima, Mexico

The state of Colima was home to a number of pre-Hispanic cultures as part of Western Mexico. Archeological evidence dates human occupation of the area as far back as 1500 BCE, with sites here contemporary with San Lorenzo on the Gulf Coast and Tlatilco in the Valley of Mexico. One period of the area’s development is called the Los Ortices era, which began around 500 BCE. During this time the elements that characterize the pre-Hispanic peoples of Colima appear, including shaft tombs and a distinctive ceramic style called rojo bruñido, or burnished red.

The next phase, called Comala and centered on a site of the same name, was from around 100 to 600 CE. Comala people perfected burnished red pottery and created representations of people and animals with skill and fluid lines. The best known of these figures are known as the fattened dogs. The Comala site shows influence from Teotihuacan. Around 500 CE, another site in Armería developed along the river of the same name.

Deer Head Mask

The Deer Head Mask Of Mexico

Fanciful headdresses were an essential component of performance costumes because they were crucial to the dancers’ perceived transformation into the personage or spirit being in whose guise they performed. In Veracruz, figurines depicting warriors and a wide variety of performers often wear full-head masks, which can be removed to reveal the person inside, such as the amazingly detailed head-mask of a deer.

Post-fire paint adorns the animal, with black-line curvilinear motifs on his long ear and bright blue-green pigment embellishing his upper lip. Large protuberances on his snout and the single horn atop his head suggest a composite zoomorph rather than a biologically accurate rendering.

The deer was an important Mesoamerican food source, and its hide was used for a variety of purposes including the wrapping of ritual bundles and as leaves (pages) for screen-fold manuscripts which contained all manner of knowledge-from history to religious mythology to astrology and astronomy. The deer also was the animal spirit form of the mother of the seminal Mexican deity Quetzalcoatl and of the wife of the maize god among the Classic Maya.

Rufino Tamayo

Rufino Tamayo, :Dia y Noche”, (Night and Day), Oil on Canvas, 1953, Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Mexico City

Rufino Tamayo, along with other muralists such as Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros, represented the twentieth century in their native country of Mexico. After the Mexican Revolution, Tamayo devoted himself to creating a distinct identity in his work. He expressed what he envisioned as the traditional Mexico and eschewed the overt political art of such contemporaries as José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, Oswaldo Guayasamin and David Alfaro Siqueiros. He disagreed with these muralists in their belief that the revolution was necessary for the future of Mexico but considered, instead, that the revolution would harm Mexico.

Tamayo expanded the technical and aesthetic possibilities of the graphic arts by developing a new medium which they named Mixografia. This technique is a unique fine art printing process that allows for the production of prints with three-dimensional texture. It not only registered the texture and volume of Rufino Tamayo’s design but also granted the artist freedom to use any combination of solid materials in its creation. Rufino Tamayo was delighted with the Mixografia process and created some 80 original Mixographs. One of their most famous Mixografia is titled “Dos Personajes Atacados por Perros” (Two Characters Attacked by Dogs).

Fito Pardo

Fito Pardo, “Aztec Dancer”

Fito Pardo has become one of Mexico’s top Cinematographers, he is now part of the director board at the AMC (Asociacion Mexicana de Cinematografia, The Mexican ASC).

He has more than 14 years of experience in Cinematography, wide experience in media related to filmmaking, from pre-production, production, post-production to print.

Reblogged with thanks to a great blog http://gaypaganbrother.tumblr.com

Mariano Rodriguez

Paintings by Mariano Rodriguez

Mariano Rodriguez was born in Havana in 1912. Since boyhood, he was interested in drawing and painting. In 1936 he went to Mexico where he studied for a year and a half with the muralists Manuel Rodriguez Lozano and Pablo O’Higgins. When he returned to Cuba his technique bore a close resemblance to that of the modern Mexican masters. In 1938 his painting “UNIDAD” received top honors at the National Exhibit of Painting and Sculpture in Havana.

Mariano is part of that generation of Cuban artists who felt the urgency to break with the influences of the Academics. Constantly and tirelessly in search of a vehicle by which to express his personality in the context of a truly “Cuban” expression, in 1941 he started to elaborate on his theme of the roosters. In the early 40’s he was influenced by the great European masters, especially Picasso and Matisse.

In 1967 he started his series of “Fruit and Reality”; in 1980 he began the series of the “Masses”, and in the mid eighties, the final “Feast of Love”. Through it all he faithfully continued to strive for essentially “Cuban” elements, the most consistent of which was the virility of the rooster, master of the domestic patio. In every one of these phases Mariano painted a rooster.

Edgar Flores (SANER)

Murals and Paintings by Edgar Flores (SANER)

Edgar Flores was born in 1981 in Mexico City, where he is currently based. As a child he developed an interest in drawing and Mexican muralism and began expressing himself through graffiti in the late 1990s. In 2004, Flores received a degree in graphic design from Universidad Autónoma de México. His work has been exhibited in galleries worldwide including Barcelona, Berlin, London, New York and Mexico City. In 2014 he had a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Luis Potosí in Mexico.

Angelico and Isais Jimenez

Angelico and Isais Jimenez, Mythical Mexican Beasts, Carved Wood

Angelico and Isais Jimenez  are the sons of Manuel Jimenez, the founder of the Oaxaca School of Mexican carved and painted animals. Though relatively unknown outside of Mexico, their work is excellent and available for sale.

Further information on their work can be found at: https://www.fofa.us/woodcarving/2

Ruffino Tamayo

Graphic Work by Rufino Tamayo

Rufino Tamayo’s legacy in the history of art lies in his oeuvre of original graphic prints in which he cultivated every technique. Rufino Tamayo’s graphic work, produced between 1925 and 1991, includes woodcuts, lithographs, etchings and “Mixografia” prints. With the help of Mexican painter and engineer Luis Remba, Tamayo expanded the technical and aesthetic possibilities of the graphic arts by developing a new medium which they named Mixografia.

This technique is a unique fine art printing process that allows for the production of prints with three-dimensional texture. It not only registered the texture and volume of Rufino Tamayo’s design but also granted the artist freedom to use any combination of solid materials in its creation. Rufino Tamayo was delighted with the Mixografia process and created some 80 original Mixographs. One of their most famous Mixografia is titled Dos Personajes Atacados por Perros (Two Characters Attacked by Dogs).

Abelardo Favela

Paintings by Abelardo Favela

Born in Mexicali in 1948, Abelardo Favela was a Mexican multi-faceted artist known for his simple, carefree scenes of everyday  life done in a palette of primary colors without shading or blending. He studied in Guadalajara and later in Mexico City, where he began painting in 1970. Favela, in addition to his artistic pursuits, was a television producer for the cultural public television network Channel 13; he later became the general director in 1977.  

In 1982, Favela founded and became director of the advertising agency Grupo Match, where he produced over two-hundred fifty commercials before retiring to focus on his artwork. Favela moved in 1994 to Cuernavaca, Mexico, to paint full time. Over the course of his lifetime, he produced over five-hundred paintings and three-hundred drawings. Abelardo Favela passed away in January of 2020 in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. 

Abelardo Favela painted scenes inspired by man’s life at sea and the area around Puerto Vallarta. The figure of the sailor, a model of masculinity and survivor by his own skills,  played an important role in many of his paintings. Favela’s work also included images of muscular athletes, foreign tourists, androgynous dancers, and romping dogs set in scenes of charm, self-confidence and a slight touch of humor. 

Favela’s work had been shown in many collective exhibitions including Mexico City’s Galileo 100 Gallery, the Oscar Roman Gallery, and the El Carmen Museum in 2005. He had also entered his work at the various “Contemporary Ex-Votes” exhibitions held in Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, El Salvador and Jamaica. 

Favela’s solo exhibitions include shows at the La Pulga Gallery, Morlet Gallery, the Status Gallery and the Galileo 100 Gallery, all in Mexico City. Favela had a solo exhibition in 2005 at the Contemporary Art Museum, Jose Luis Cuevas in Mexico City. From 2008 to 2018, Abelardo Favela has been represented by the Contempo Gallery in Puerto Vallarta Jalisco. 

Bottom Insert Image: Abelardo Favela, “La Gran Reunión”, Date Unknown, Oil on Canvas, 162.6 x 142.2 cm, Private Collection

Cacaxtia’s Venus Temple

Detail of Battle Mural in Cacaxtia’s Venus Temple

Cacaxtla is the name of a Late Classic to Epiclassic (AD 600-900) city in the Puebla Valley, Tlaxcala, Mexico. It was a sprawling palace containing vibrantly colored murals painted in unmistakable Maya style. The nearby site of Xochitecatl was a more public ceremonial complex associated with Cacaxtla. Cacaxtla and Xochitecatl prospered 650-900 CE, probably controlling important trade routes through the region with an enclave population of no more than 10,000  Olmeca-Xicalanca people.

The most famous of Cacaxtla’s preserved paintings is the “Battle Mural”, or Mural de la Batalla, located in the northern plaza of the basamento. Dating from prior to 700, it is placed on the sloping limestone wall of a temple base and is split in two by a central staircase. It depicts two groups of warriors locked in battle: on the one side are jaguar warriors, armed with spears, obsidian knives, and round shields, who are locked in battle with an army of bird warriors (some of whom are shown naked and in various stages of dismemberment).

Jose Parra

Jose Parra, “The Source of Miracles”

Born in Guadalajara Jalisco, Mexico, José Parra comes from a family of three generations of artists. He started out early studying under his father and when he was 16 years old, he decided to formally follow in his father’s footsteps. Parra worked with several galleries in Puerto Vallarta for three years, and enjoyed a brief stint in Toronto; however, he had his first individual art exhibit in New York, in 2001.

Jose Parra’s style follows the old baroque style, which was popular in the sixteenth to mid-eighteenth centuries. The baroque style used exaggerated motion and easily-interpreted details to produce drama and tension within the imagery.

Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera, “Automotive Assembly Line”, Detail of One of Twenty-Seven Fresco Panels, North Wall, Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan

When the Mexican artist Diego Rivera arrived in Detroit in 1932 to paint the walls at the Detroit Institute of Arts, the city was a leading industrial center of the world. It was also the city that was hit the hardest by the Great Depression. Industrial production and the workforce were a third of what they had been before the 1929 Crash.

The space Rivera was given to paint was aligned on an east/west/north/south axis. Rivera utilized this architectural orientation in a symbolic way. The manufacture of the 1932 Ford V-8 at the Ford Motor Company’s River Rouge plant is captured in the two major panels on the north and south walls.

On the north wall, Rivera captured all the processes related to the assembly of the motor. The blast furnace glows orange and red at extreme temperatures to make molten steel that is poured into molds to make ingots that are then milled into sheets. All the major processes related to the manufacture of the motor of the car from mold-making in the upper left to the final assembly of the motor on the assembly line in the foreground are accurately rendered with engineering precision.

Diego Rivera wove the processes together through the use of the serpentine conveyors and assembly lines. The composition is grounded by two rows of white milling machines that stand as sentinels in the center of the wall and march into the background to the blast furnace.