Rafael Coronel

The Museo de los Pintores Oaxaqueños in coordination with Lourdes Sosa Gallery, Black Coffee Gallery Foundation and private collectors of the artist Rafael Coronel present the exhibition Retrofutura II.  The 43 pieces in the exhibition, including oils, acrylics and bronze sculptures, which were previously displayed in the tribute exhibition on the occasion of his 80th birthday by the Palace Museum of Fine Arts in Mexico City.

Rafael Coronel was born in 1931 in Zacatecas and is younger brother of the painter and sculptor Pedro Coronel and son-in-law of Diego Rivera (1886-1957).  He well represents the Ruptura (Rupture) movement in Mexico, also known as Nueva Presencia (New Presence). The movement consisted of a shift away from heroic Muralism toward a more traditional way of art. Coronel created paintings that lacked the forceful social statements of the Muralists' works. Coronel's paintings are ambiguous and suggest that man's efforts to control his destiny are futile. His paintings of old men and women, isolated and floating in nebulous space, have a melancholic sobriety, and include faces from the past great masters, often floating in a diffuse haze.  His paintings contain echoes of Goya and José Clemente Orozco and achieve dramatic effects through a skilful use of chiaroscuro (an Italian term which literally means light-dark) and tenebrist effects (from the Italian word "tenebroso" meaning dark describes a style of painting characterized by deep shadows and distinct contrast between light and dark). The psychology of the characters is captured with accuracy, and their appearance is carefully depicted, but the background in which they appear imbues them with an air of timelessness.

The vocation of being a painter was something hereditary for Rafael. His grandfather used to decorate churches. When his father told him that pedro, his brother, was studying to become a painter in Mexico city, he though it was one of the greatest wastes of time, because painters got no money from painting, even the greatest painters in Mexico had to appeal to other jobs.  When Rafael went to Mexico City he wanted to be a soccer player but after he arrived he became interested in architecture. In 1952 he won a scholarship in a painting contest with a work done with crayons.

He has also assembled in Zacatecas, in the restored convent of San Francisco, an important collection of masks from all over Mexico.  He has lived in the city of Cuernavaca since 1981.  For more pictures from the exhibition please visit my picasa web album.

Santiago Carbonell

Santiago Carbonell is a Spanish artist who emigrated to Mexico in 1986.  Carbonell started painting with nineteenth-century realism and has now moved into the field of "modern" photorealism. 

He has mentioned that his work has evolved from the Renaissance tradition, in which technique and perfectionism are important to contemporary realism. The work of Carbonell catches with true virtuosity the texture of the skin, the spirit, the expression and the feeling. His nudes charge a very intense life.

This collection of Santiago Carbonell called "the disenchantment of beauty" is on display at the Museo de los Pintores in Oaxaca.  The collection shows the evolution of Carbonell in recent years. This collection includes the most recent works in which the author shows a sensitivity of beauty that shifts to disillusion, of nights of urban silence to the passivity of sands of the desert of Tunisia.

From the beauty of the eternal feminine that vicariously evokes 15th century, Madrid, to the young revolutionaries of the 21st century, struggling to change a world dominated by a minority elite, the iconography of Carbonell shows the possibility of how good and evil can coexist, making these come alive from his painting invites us to reflect, to and think.

This is just a small sample, I have more images in my picasa web album.  Santiago Carbonell's website is http://www.santiagocarbonell.com/

Museo de los Pintores Oaxaqueños

The Museo de los Pintores Oaxaqueños hosts shows for emerging local artists. The building itself dates from 1695 and in 2004-5 under went restoration emerging as the art museum you can visit today. Located at the corner of Independencia and Garcia Vigil across from the Alameda de León and the Catedral de Oaxaca.

Desarrollo Luminoso by Rola Vallejo

Oaxaca has a long tradition in the arts from Monte Alban, continuing with Rufino Tamayo, and today has the artist Francisco Toledo as its most prominent representative. Since ancient times the people of the valleys of Oaxaca have been encountering the peoples of the Anahuac valley of central Mexico. Also stepping from the plateau to the isthmus they encountered the Mayan culture. There is evidence of this cultural wealth in Monte Alban and Mitla. This heritage, that the people of Oaxaca are innate artists, is evident in the Mixtec codices and murals Huijazó's Tomb. The sensitivity and creativity of the Oaxacan people is expressed in the highest aspiration of its painters. The painters are the eyes, hands and hearts of people. Their paintings leave evidence of the spiritual greatness and love for life, which for millennia has characterized the people of Oaxaca. From the ancestors who decorated the walls of the centers of knowledge in Mitla and Monte Alban, or the pictorial art in the Mixtec codices, to Miguel Cabrera, a painter of the colonial era, who left masterworks in many temples of New Spain. Now we must think about Rufino Tamayo, Rodolfo Nieto and Rodolfo Morales, as they have crossed the river on their long road to Mictlan (the underworld of Aztec mythology). Today, Francisco Toledo lives not only as a universal artist, but also as a generous patron who has given the pleiades of Oaxacan artists a cultural center, where altruism towards cultural and natural heritage is recognized. This altruism derives from Gozona, which is a word from the Zapotec that can be defined as similar to the Golden Rule. The Gozona means giving and receiving, and sharing with neighbors by paying homage to their deities as the saints are insatiable. In this art is part of the village ritual and beneficial to our imagination and our sensibilities, always tuned and alert. What is better than art and music to entertain the ceremonies? Through the mist of the mountain, the Copel, flowers, and dancing, the community reaches its exquisite fullness. The art of the party remains active with its vibrant colors, dances, ceremonies, fireworks, unusual costumes, and surprises found in the inexhaustible cascade of fruit, candy and objects found these days in public squares and markets. Oaxacan art is an expression from this feeling of community.

The Museum of Oaxacan Painters was created with the aim of providing an open space to development of contemporary visual and graphic arts in the state, offering exhibitions to promote and publicize the work of artists from Oaxaca.

Cortando Flor de Zempazuchitl, by Pedro Tapia.

Today these include Juan Alcazar, Laura Armenta, Roman Andrade, Fernando Andiacci, Modesto Bernardo, Marco Bustamante, Enrique Flores, Federico Flores, Justina Fuentes, Irma Guerrero, Sergio Hernandez, Maximo Javier, Yvonne Kennedy, Ruben Leyva, Abelardo López, Emiliano Lopez, Francisco Lopez, Gonzalo López, Luis José, Eddie Martinez, Ariel Mendoza, Arnulfo Mendoza, Felipe Morales, Guillermo Olguin Guillermo Pacheco, Tomás Pineda, Rolando Rojas, Samuel Rojas, Cecilio Sanchez, Jorge Sanchez, Emilio Sanchez, Virgilio Santaella, Alejandro Santiago, Santiago Filemeón, Crispin Valladares, Jose Villalobos, Emilia Winter and Luis Zarate.

The museum has three main objectives the promotion of the work of graphic artists from Oaxaca, encouraging contact with different streams of visual and graphic arts in Mexico and the world and promoting Oaxacan artists by linking them with other museums and galleries Mexico and abroad. 
The museum is administered by the Trust Units of Cultural Services and Tourism of the State of Oaxaca which defines the museum’s vocation as a cultural center open to all art forms, to accommodate not only exhibitions but also concerts, lectures, conferences and workshops.

The museum features various activities, both within the museum and in communities across the state. Guided tours, children's workshops, lectures and exhibition of local cultural activities, national and international. It also has a valuable and enthusiastic group of "friends of the museum" to support the activities that take place.

There are more photos in a picasa web album here. The album works from a current show back through a couple of shows in 2010 and 2009.