Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - Javier Niño is recognized as today’s most significant artist in Puerto Vallarta. He is the current leader of the particular naïf style initiated by Manuel Lepe which provides artistic identity to Puerto Vallarta.

His exquisite work represents the rich natural beauty of this wonderful town. Beyond the aesthetic achievements his work portrays and describes, with a deep and distinctive sense of expression, the wildlife, legends and stories from this region.

For decades Vallarta has been promoted beyond its borders through the art of Javier Niño. The artist has created murals in Santa Barbara, California, and Highland Park, Illinois. In the late 70’s, his first exhibition of Art Vallarta beyond its borders was held in Marina del Rey, California. At the same time, he ultimately contributed to the opening of new spaces dedicated to the exhibition of visual arts. He instituted the first painting workshop on River Cuale Island in PV.

The most recent mural work by Javier Niño, “Allegory,” from the Gail and Frank Rudin Collection, has been installed in the Puerto Vallarta International Airport and will be presented to the public on December 14th at 5 pm.

This mural set consists of five 1.86 x 2.0 meter panels, acrylic on canvas, that hold among them great compositional and thematic unity, harmoniously blending elements and characters that are characteristics of Javier Niño’s Vallarta art work, along with newly incorporated elements of realistic expression and even abstractions and forms of contemporary representation.

Panel I. Fine Arts
Architecture, sculpture, painting, literature, dance, music and film; all serve as the mural's beginning narrative, featuring the eternally feminine figure of a woman. She is attracting a dove as it descends from the heights to her hand. The woman symbolizes beauty, sensibility and the origin of the arts. The dove represents divine inspiration.

Panel II. The Night of the Iguana. Liz Taylor and Richard Burton
The 1963 Oscar winning film, The Night of the Iguana, made in Puerto Vallarta with two of Hollywood's most famous stars, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, brought world fame to this beautiful town. The sculpture, "El Caballito," located on the Malecon, is one of the recognizable icons here.

Panel III. Piedra del Sol
The Piedra del Sol represents the Aztec Cosmology. The Eagle devouring the snake is the major Mexican symbol. The Eagle represents the spirit and the snake the adversity. The spirit in dominion of adversity.

Panel IV. The Mexicanity
Depicted here is the fusion of the Aztec and Spanish cultures that gave rise to the Mexican. The horse, brought to the Americas for the Spaniards, along with the jaguars and mermaid surrounded by fish, all allude to the rich local flora, fauna and wildlife.

Panel V. Pirate. Goddess Mayahuel. Airplane. The Man
Seen here are the Pirates in the Bay of who were attracted by ships and valuable cargo coming from Asia during the sixteenth century. Mayahuel is the Mexican goddess of the maguey plant from which Tequila is made; depicted also is the first plane to arrive in Puerto Vallarta, piloted in 1931 by Charles Bagham, and the man figure closing the mural's narrative represents the eternal masculine origin of humanity and wisdom.