| | |  Vallarta Living | Art Talk | December 2009 
Drawn Together in Yelapa
 H. Holt Sauvé - PVNN
December 12, 2009
Combine 97 years of jungle painting experience between 5 Artists and what you get is the show currently running at Yelapa's Hotel Lagunita Gallery. Coming to us from an stellar career in the Northwest, exhibition curator Nicola Weston tells us that she chose these artists not only because they have this super lush creative environment in common, where inspiration seems to abound around every curve, but also add the logistical nightmares of Yelapa's remoteness to an artist's every day survival, which often involves packing supplies and paintings in and out on mules, then into boats, and changing busses a few times before that round trip international flight.
A few sales later and you are ready to do it all over again. Nicola thinks it's just amazing that so many high quality paintings continue to come out of this small far away place that has never even seen a art supply store.
When I first saw Nichole's painting at the opening, I was reminded that one paints what one knows. She applies her oils without fuss and directly, each stroke loaded with precision and purpose. Her paintings are full of common objects and uncommon people, saturated colors against rosy skin tones, the rustic against post modern. Here are comfortable views making one wish that it was their portrait being painted, posing on some long hot afternoon, being including as part of the scenery, part of the history of this famous place.
Nicola has been teaching art for many years, her insights and dedication brought her together with Gail Marcia whom she shared a show with at the Loft Galeria last year in Vallarta. Gail's grief-filled images stem from the sudden death of a friend. She now employs universal symbols, crumbling bones being consumed by fire, yet finding some solace in the gathering of painted flowers heavy and dripping of varnish off the canvas, paying homage while mourners stand guard.
Puente's passionate is what Philippo Lo Grande calls his latest series of paintings "a bridge is a way across a gap, the passionate part is in the first crossing of it". His large impressionistic triptych fisherman casting a net under the bridge captures the feel of the tropics, like his full-sized seascape with Mother and Child reaching out to bridge the gap between them and the waves. Lo Grande's work will also be seen in next month's show featuring 40 artists of the Bay at Vallarta's new Naval Museum downtown through January 31st.
Last years Christopher Moses had a controversial show here that proved so popular it ran extra months. His most recent painting, Self portrait with Orbs, is included here. To understand Chris's mindset, I have included Kris Zertuche's very insightful article The Life and Times of Chris Moses, Zen and Realismo Magico.
She begins with a quote from Carl Jung: "As a human being the artist may have many moods and a will and personal aims. But as an artist he is 'man' in a higher sense - he is 'collective man', one who carries and shapes the unconscious, psychic life of mankind"
Christopher Moses works sway from "surrealism" to "post expressionism" or better known in Latin America as: "Realismo Magico". The "Realismo Magico" is about the improbable, and Surrealism, is about impossible. A surrealist painter as Magritte uses the same precision technique as the "magico-realistas" but include in his works impossible juxtapositions as it is a train inside a chimney. On the other side Moses's work the presence of houses over water, is totally unexpected, improbable, (everything is possible since post modernity and global warming). The "magico-realista" discovers the magical element in life, with out deformation. The surrealist gives himself to the oriric deformations of life.
"Realismo Magico" is a reflection of the 20th century dilemma of man, which lives overwhelmed in a technologic world. It is intent to re-discover the magical element that exists in reality. It is also an artistic reflection of the philosophic and philosophic ideas of Carl Jung, who affirmed since the first part of the century, the necessity of man, as specie, to complete itself by juxtaposition of irrational and rational.
Moses's vast and recurrent themes are related to the forces of nature: storms, maelstroms, tsunamis, fires, tornados and strong blazes; on the other hand he also appeals for the figurative in the use of different symbols of his own mythology as: houses, mermaids, la Katerina (death) lush jungles, beaches and other objects common to his life.
His brush stroke evokes me to the Zen Japanese masters of the 13th century were the single brushstroke in calligraphy was primarily used as a tool for communicating spiritual insight. In either style, the painting evolves from the dynamic play between painter and circumstances, where the brushstroke is simple and direct, each brushstroke suggesting the next. New visual tensions are created as the painting develops, until the stroke becomes a maze of curves and swirls that confirm the final piece.
To one degree to another, by the meditative practice of making spontaneous gestures, Moses is trying to set aside the rational side of he's mind and trust the power of intuition, the artist is attempting to go beyond the mind enclosed "ego" and compose spontaneously from a deeper dimension of consciousness. Some called this process "spontaneous unreasoning" or like Jung stated: "collective unconscious".
It is said that as enlightened individuals we are totally aware of the moment, no conceptualizing experience, but being fully present in every experience. Unattached, we stand firmly between the experience of everything and nothing, holding on to neither. We "kiss the joy as it flies," to quote William Blake.
It was a struggle for some modern artists to become themselves, a great struggle. From a Freudian viewpoint, the "ego" and rationalizing mind does not give up control easily. The painting of Chris Moses as the Calligraphy of Zen masters does not show signs of struggle, only pure spontaneity. They have moved past the monumental struggle to be free from the tyranny of the "ego". They are free, And they do not think of making works of art. They simply brush as naturally as they breathe.
Chris's paintings can be seen on permanent display at the National Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.
Many years ago, when Yelapa's muses were choosing their painters, Culebra arrived with her mystical watercolors, seascapes and inner worlds lovingly infused on paper, a visual connection of Spirit and Matter, art on the edge of the world, evoking a separate reality that will take some time to understand.
Thankfully her work will continue into the next show with photographer Kris Hoien through January 15, 2010. Their opening, entitled Yelapa Images will begin at 7 pm on the 15th of December. So if you would like to experience a new point of view, come by and see what these artists are capable of creating here in Yelapa - so close and yet so far away. |
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