Puerto Vallarta, Mexico – Galleria Dante, the largest and most eclectic art gallery in Puerto Vallarta, is proud to announce the visit of Guadalajara artist Israel Zzepda, who will be in the gallery talking about his artwork on Monday, April 17 and Tuesday, April 18, 2023.
At only 54, Israel Zzepda has been a professional artist for more than half his life. He has been painting and drawing for more than 35 years, but also sculpts in paper mache, bronze & cast aluminum. Israel’s body of work is remarkably large given his age, but when you consider he became an apprentice at the age of 15 and a full-time art teacher at the age of 19, it isn’t so surprising. He taught both art and fashion illustration for more than 13 years, and, as a teacher, he influenced many young artists, including several members of his own family.
There is a sensitivity, innocence and refined discipline about Israel. His work explores religious, spiritual, sexual and existential realms, reflecting truths and questioning established thinking, and he is not afraid to express himself. “The artist is a reflection of daily life. I want to be a chronicle of my time,” says Zzepda, who seeks to reflect his own unique style and honesty in all of his work.
In his approach of the human figure, texture plays an extremely important role. Instead of painting photo-realistic portraits, he sacrifices the perfection of the human figure in hopes of revealing part of the shared human experience that resides within him. “We are all good and bad, we construct and we destroy, we are of light and somewhat dark, journeying daily through the streets of the planet.”
Israel’s imaginative capacity is, perhaps, the most dominant striking feature of his work. The viewer can not help but be drawn in and intrigued by the thematic contents of his paintings. Some of his works appear to be recreating ambiguous and mysterious worlds often made up of strange, desolate environments while others display serene, sometimes humorous, eroticism. He also embraces notoriously religious topics, as well as ontological and metaphysical subjects.
Israel has also painted more than 1000 meters of murals, both public and private, in Cancun, Uruapan, Michoacán and Jalisco. In addition, he completed 6 murals in Sardinia, Italy, in 2011, and was part of a collective show in Turin, Italy in 2014. Since then, he has been working on a new conceptual art project that delves into human and social justice in the setting of globalized power and its effects on ecological consciousness and human rights. His latest work, in conjunction with these projects, represents a new cycle of creative production and personal growth for Israel, and we are all very anxious to see where it leads.
Make palns now to stop by Galleria Dante on Monday, April 17 and/or Tuesday, April 18, 2023 to meet this fascinating artist.
Open Mon-Fri from 10 am-5 pm, Galleria Dante is located at Basilio Badillo #269 in Puerto Vallarta’s Romantic Zone. For more information, call (322) 222-2477, or send an email to info(at)galleriadante.com.
