Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco – Forget the palm trees. Forget the sunsets. Forget the version of Puerto Vallarta that gets printed on postcards.
Artist Danyol León is interested in the people.
Cabaret Vallarta: Portraits from the Other Side of Paradise brings 23 original portraits to date of people from Puerto Vallarta’s LGBTQ+ community into the new lounge at Coco Cabaret, putting painting, nightlife, performance, and queer community in the same room.
The exhibition features performers, artists, outsiders, and creative misfits from the world surrounding Puerto Vallarta’s LGBTQ+ cabaret scene. Some are highly visible. Others are known primarily within the community. Together, they create a portrait of a city that looks very different from the polished tourist fantasy.
“I’ve lived here long enough to know that paradise is a lot more interesting when you look at the people instead of the palm trees,” says Danyol. “These are the people I know, the people I love, the people who make me laugh, the people who piss me off, the people who perform, the people who create, and the people who make this community what it is.”
That perspective comes naturally to an artist whose creative life has been shaped by punk, queer culture, music, nightlife, performance, and DIY communities. Danyol’s work has never been particularly interested in behaving itself. His visual language combines portraiture, Mexican iconography, bold geometric forms, pattern, pop imagery, and a graphic sensibility shaped by his longstanding connection to music and alternative culture.
Coco Cabaret’s new lounge provides a natural setting for the exhibition: a place where people can have a cocktail, meet friends, look at art, and gather before a performance. By placing the portraits there, Danyol is putting the subjects of the work back into the environment that helped inspire it.
The result is part portrait exhibition, part community snapshot, and part celebration of the wonderfully messy collection of characters that makes Puerto Vallarta’s queer scene what it is.
And there is a tangible community component as well. The original paintings and limited edition Fine Art Giclée prints will be available for purchase. Twenty percent of sales from both original artwork and prints will be donated to the Vallarta Gay+ Community Center’s LGBTQ+ mental-health program. Each print will be hand-signed and numbered by Danyol León, with an edition of only 20 prints per artwork.
For Danyol, that connection is important. The exhibition isn’t simply about putting recognizable faces on walls. It is about giving something back to the community that has provided so much of the inspiration, friendship, music, performance, and chaos that surrounds his work.
A companion website will introduce the artists and performers featured in the exhibition, with information about their work and upcoming performances, allowing visitors to connect the portraits with the people and performers who continue to shape Vallarta’s queer cultural scene.
“I’ve always been more interested in the people and performers on the other side of the postcard. The weirdos. The misfits and outsiders. The artists.”
ABOUT DANYOL LEÓN
Danyol León is a Puerto Vallarta-based artist whose work spans painting, portraiture, public art, murals, and design. His visual language draws on Mexican imagery, geometric forms, pattern, popular culture, and the influence of quilting and contemporary art, while retaining the irreverence and graphic energy of his punk and queer roots.
His work exists comfortably outside traditional boundaries between fine art, public art, music, nightlife, and community. In Puerto Vallarta, his projects have included large-scale murals and community-based public art, alongside an active studio practice producing an expanding body of portraiture and figurative work.
Danyol’s work is rooted in the places and people around him. Rather than treating Puerto Vallarta as a picturesque backdrop, he uses the city as a living source of characters, stories, visual culture, humor, identity, and contradiction.
Cabaret Vallarta: Portraits from the Other Side of Paradise brings those interests together in one place, putting 23 portraits to date of the city’s LGBTQ+ community directly into the nightlife environment that helped shape them. The opening reception is Thursday, October 29, at 6:30 pm at Coco Cabaret Lounge, next to the Coco Cabaret theater entrance. The exhibition will remain on view throughout the season.
Only a 5-minute walk from the original, Coco Cabaret by The Palm is located in Zona Romantica at Francisco I Madero #289. Call 322-222-2017 or visit Coco’s website and Facebook page for more details about this exciting new entertainment venue.
