Tag: mexico

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.