Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - Artists Yvan Genest, Alvaro Zardoni & Jean Gabriel Lambert open at Galleria Dante on March 23, as part of the last Southside Shuffle of the 2017-2018 season. Stop by the largest and most eclectic art gallery in Puerto Vallarta to meet the artists and enjoy complimentary cocktails from 6:00-10:00 pm.

Yvan Genest

Galleria Dante is pleased to present Yvan Genest's newest series of paintings. Yvan has been exhibiting at Dante for 15 years and never before has his art reached such a masterful presence. In this new exhibition, Yvan explores some of his favorite themes, going to the essentials. Mixing memories with strong impressions of the actual world, incorporating new contemporary elements, symbols and words, the painter seems to tell us that life is now or never.

"After spending so much time practicing art, Art now makes me do what it wants," says Yvan, whose deep drive and remarkable imagination have propelled to a prolific artistic career spanning now 35 years.

Yvan Genest's career had unconventional beginnings. At first, his artistic temperament drove him to music. As a songwriter, musician and singer, he toured throughout Europe as a performer for many years, until he discovered painting, where he found an unforeseen ground for his fertile imagination.

For many years, Yvan worked and had successful exhibitions in Paris, while honing his art with renowned artists. A first trip to Mexico in 1985 led him to discover the profound spirituality of Mexican art. His first exhibition in Puerto Vallarta, in 1998, brought him immediate recognition.

Since his first watercolors, sold door-to-door in his native Montreal decades ago, Yvan has painted and exhibited in many cities (Paris, Toronto, Ottawa, Seattle, Los Angeles and San Miguel de Allende, to name just a few), while building his unique and inspiring iconography. He has created thousands of paintings, drawings, watercolors, pastels, etchings, engravings, collages and digital works that have found collectors internationally.

Yvan Genest's maverick personality drove him to explore all paths of visual arts and develop his unique, shamanic and timeless imagery. A self-taught artist, he paints as a dancer dances, with both his body and spirit. His influences are diverse, from Mexican popular culture, Expressionism and modern free-form figurative painting, to specific artists such as Joseph Beuys, Rufino Tamayo and Francis Bacon. Yvan Genest has created up to this day more than 7,000 works.

Yvan's paintings are journeys into the underworld of the human soul. They represent the human psyche, the collective unconscious into which the painter dives in order to bring back icons and symbols that are at the threshold of dreams. His art belongs to contemporary mystical expressionism, combining the insights and paradoxes of our times with echoes of bygone ages.

Yvan's luminous eye-catching colors and imaginative figures offer a fascinating world that dives into our own. His paintings, bright and cheerful, combine inspiring senses of depth and infinite freedom.

The artist will be present at his opening show, a great opportunity to discover and discuss with him about his fascinating new production.

Alvaro Zardoni

Alvaro begun 2017 with new two projects to work on: both exploring a playful side after the completion of his chess set, which had opened for him a connection to what toys meant to him as a child. One project started after a commission to make a "Niño Dios," from a popular tradition in Mexico for the Nacimientos (nativity scenes), but when he finished the piece, it was rejected by the client so he decided to make a series of his own, which he called Chamukitos (Chamuco is a name given locally to the devil). He finally has eight pieces ready to share with us.

The other is a series of small silhouettes of various animals to be cast in silver and then framed... He did not want to have a use for them as jewelry or bookmarks... he wanted them to be just objects to behold and appreciated.

But both these projects were interrupted when he contacted chicken pox in February 2017... he was forced to have nearly a sabbatical year because of it. Even though he tried to go to the foundry as usual, he did not have the strength or concentration to get things done properly.

Fortunately, he has been drawing more these past few months (after nearly 20 years of not holding a pencil!) and he has been in charge of a nude drawing workshop at the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana. He loves this new experience and hopes that it will enrich his future work in bronze.

He also lives in an area of Mexico City, that was hit very hard last September with an earthquake (I felt it was stronger than the one in '85, which also caused a lot of damage) ... so as he was nearly recovered from his illness, the shock and then the sadness that the quake brought were life changing. "It has made me, and many others close to me, reconsider what is important: the ties with family and friends and make new plans for the present and the future."

Alvaro was born at Mexico City's "Colonia Roma" neighborhood. He studied painting and drawing at Irene Lindroth's studio from 1975 to 1981 and from 1983 until 1988. He started to work in sculpture in an independent way, experimenting with various materials until his almost exclusive use of bronze in his current work. His sculpture - figurative and of small format - is usually accompanied by different found objects that reinforce the original idea of each piece.

Zardoni's reference to both Classical and Mediterranean sculpture also take into consideration mythological themes, literary characters or those derived from legends. He exhibits regularly around Mexico in various galleries, official sites, cultural centers and alternative spaces. He graduated from the School of Architecture at the Universidad Anahuac (Mexico City,) in 1987. He is currently represented by Galleria Dante in Puerto Vallarta. He has been a member of the Salon de la Plástica Mexicana since 2006.

Recently Alvaro was asked if he was influenced by the artist, Louise Nevelson. "When I was quite young I read something Louise Nevelson wrote and that has stayed with me ever since. I love her work and admire the courage she had to give up everything and become an artist... though obviously I'm more into figurative sculptors: I have passed through various favorite ones and studied their work, the first one was Rodin, then Aristide Maillol, Camille Claudel, Josep Clará, Subirachs, Arno Breker, Robert Graham and Javier Marin. I'm not sure if I can see their direct influence on my work... they all have marked me in some way, perhaps very subtly, but I try not to copy anyone... I have tried to find my own way of expression..." he replied.

"From earliest childhood I knew I was going to be an artist. I felt like an artist. Some people are here on earth and never know what they want. I call them 'unfinished business.' I had a blueprint all my life from childhood and I knew exactly what I demanded of this world. Now, some people may not demand of life as much as I did. But I wanted one thing that I thought belonged to me, I wanted the whole show. For me that is living... Who is an artist? I say, we take a title. No one gives it to us. We make our lives," Zardoni added.

Alvaro's work forms part of private collections in México, Miami, Los Ángeles, Chicago, Boston, Nueva York, Portland, Eugene, Seattle, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Colonia, Stuttgart, Viena, Amberes, Rotterdam, Lisboa, Madrid, Milán, Como, Paris and London. In the last 5 years Alvaro has also been commissioned to create several park sculptures. Alvaro created many popular series: Bedels, Dreamers, Mermaids, Cats, to name a few! Come meet this delightful, gentle soul who is one of Galleria Dante's top artists.

Jean Gabriel Lambert

Jean Gabriel Lambert recalls the work of the late, great Quebecois automatiste Paul Emile Borduas. Strong rear, middle and foregrounds create a sense of luminous trajectory, echoing the paths of light that are reminiscent and informed by the artist's training in direction, dance and action.

His canvases weave intimate stories with universal ideals, where the turbulence of the contemporary moment is actualized among the echoes of chaos. Using paint aggressively, his layering is dense and evocative of a long tradition of modernist abstraction. Inspired by the light and color found in nature, his work seeks to capture the spectacular. Colours, movement, depth, light and colours again: Jean-Gabriel's paintings are thrilling and explosive. From his first ink and pastel scribbles to his most recent acrylic canvases, this artist is telling us a story that has begun more than two decades ago.

A self-taught painter, Jean-Gabriel first studied Pharmacy. He then enrolled in theater school upon earning his degree. Jean-Gabriel has performed on stage and has also starred in a few movies. He later added singing to his artistic accomplishments.

Driven by an irrepressible desire to create, it's finally in the visual arts that Jean-Gabriel finds his true passion. Drawing and painting opened up the possibility for an unimpeded daily practice: it's this great freedom that Jean-Gabriel has long sought. From the moment that he began painting, he knew that he'd pursue this endeavour for the rest of his life.

For the following 3 years, Jean-Gabriel devoted himself seriously to painting and took a few technical courses. He first acquainted himself with large-format oil painting before switching to acrylics. As he had always desired, he starts practising his art daily and gradually asserts his distinctive style. His numerous trips to Mexico, which has become his second home, provide much of his inspiration.

Jean-Gabriel continually finds in his Montreal studio the same energy that propels him towards his daily ritual: his improvised movements are triggered by music and meditation. A tangible context stemming from reality is at the core of each of Jean-Gabriel's paintings.

Whether it's Mexico's colours or an emotion related to friendship or love, each painting is the realization of a simple concept. It is sometimes through series that the artist, with thoroughness and wonderful freedom, creates his artwork such as his Pierres précieuses/Piedras preciosas, his finely crafted and colorfully sparkling gems. Holding the secret to the personal story that he has been telling from the very start, Jean-Gabriel gives us the clues through his canvases' titles: El espejo, La fiesta, Reforma, La pura vida, Madeleine, Volver, etc.

The beauty in Jean-Gabriel Lambert's art rests in the multitude of layers in his paintings. There is the artist's story and all the stories of each spectator. If they differ, there is always however an emotion as powerful that Jean-Gabriel's artwork infuses to its public.

Since 2000 Jean-Gabriel has been represented by several art galleries in Mexico and Canada He sells on average sixty paintings yearly to American, Mexican and Canadian collectors. His public has remained faithful throughout the years which Jean-Gabriel greatly appreciates. He enjoys meeting people and sharing with them. "Love that we never tire of," says the artist, enriched from these exchanges.

Come and meet these wonderful artist for cocktails from 6:00 to 10:00 pm on Friday, March 23 at Galleria Dante.

While you are there, be sure to check out Di Vino Dante, a chic wine and tapas bar overlooking the gallery's sculpture garden. In late June, Di Vino Dante opened a small dining area on the ground floor in a corner of Galleria Dante, for those who like to people watch. Be sure to ask about their new three-course dinner menu.