UNIARS
Art in Venezuela
“If you wisely invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.” - Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect (1867-1959)
Open Hours: RSVP for exhibits by phone or email (469) 525-1496 alberto@uniars.com
UNIARS Alberto Montilla Eudomar Silva
Directions: 1200 Conroe Dr. Allen, TX 75013
1200 Conroe Dr. Allen, TX RSVP for exhibit showings alberto@uniars.com (469) 525-1496 2
Artists AgĂźin, Alonso, 18 Atencio, Dina, 20 Casanova, Oscar, 22 Cuevas, Luis, 6 GarcĂa, Bruno, 12 Mendoza, Johnny, 15 Ramos, Carlos, 25 Reverol, Maira, 27 Reyes, Ricardo, 21 Storey, Sara, 29 Vargas, Antonio, 24
All rights of artworks shown in this catalog belong to the respective artist
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Introduction Since the first petroglyphs created by native aborigines, Venezuelan art expressions have been molded by the many cultures that created the country as we know it today: the native aborigines, Africans brought to the region as slaves, Spaniards that conquered and ruled for 300 years, and the European and South American immigration through the second half of last century. Since then, and thanks to artists such as Armando Reverón, and more recently Carlos Cruz-Diez, Oswaldo Vigas and many others, the art in Venezuela evolved from the traditional art in the colonies to a full modern local expression which embraced the modern techniques and combined them with the local themes of Latin American history: Color, ancestral art, flora, fauna, and movement; some characteristics that defines Latin American art. In this, our first exhibition, we present you with an arrange of expressions that represent a small snapshot of the Art in Venezuela, from the perspective of its creators. The illusionary, enchanted narrative created by Luis Cuevas “El Canaguararte”; the ancestral, almost divine figures of Bruno García; the symbolic, ancestral and living representation of local nature by Johnny Mendoza; the geometric universe of Alonso Agüin; the Boehme, feminine figures of Dina Atencio; the Quest of search for Latin American identity of Oscar Casanova; the baroque representation of trivial objects of Ricardo Reyes; the mechanical and idealized cities of Maira Reverol; and the local, native expressions of Carlos Ramos. You will find common themes, those that are part of what being “Venezolano” means. As the Venezuelan Maestro Oswaldo Vigas mentioned once, “the objective of art is not to adorn but to transcend…A piece of art is the eternity”. Through this exhibition, we show the legacy of a group of Venezuelan artists in aiming to transcend. Alberto Montilla Eudomar Silva 4
When contemplating his recent artwork, it is evident his Latin-American identity: richness of color, luminosity, texture and ancestral elements inside a legendary and mystic landscape. Despite the narrative character of his work, Luis Cuevas does not pretend to describe a real situation, but the achievement of a structure of chromatic shapes extended almost uniformly over the surface, in which what the observer seems to identify fades into a background, to an illusory and enchanted space that call us to perceive beyond the known reality1.
Luis Cuevas Š 2015
Luis Cuevas “El Canaguararte� Maracaibo (Venezuela) Luis Cuevas was born in 1952 in Maracaibo, Zulia State. With a prolific artistic production which started in 1982, Luis Cuevas has become an artistic reference in the region. His artwork has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, including a solo exhibition in the MACZUL (Modern Art Museum of Zulia State) covering his more than 30 years of creative experience in diverse formats.
Luis Cuevas painting is abstract, but charged with symbols, signs and allusions that evoke hidden realities2. Interpreting Luis Cuevas artwork results in impressions that discover metaphoric proposals from color and its technical expression. His narrative image relies on a grammar of color, where each tone is a category that organizes with others to give sense to the artwork in its totality, generating chromatic sensations that allows observing an independence of dyes. Each color is its own presence. The jungle routine, the confusion between flora and fauna builds a polychrome representing the virtue of autonomous color. In the middle of this combat of colors, the figures possess themselves forming a live scene. In absolute simplicity, the artwork is more than a canvas, it is a sequence of events narrated that sublimates the real and make of themselves a plausible metaphor. 1 According to the critic Oscar Gonzalez Bogen 2 Accoding to Peran Erminy 6
Iguazul Luis Cuevas (VENEZUELA) Acrylic on Canvas 47 x 40 inches 2015
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The bird maker (El hacedor de pรกjaros) Luis Cuevas (VENEZUELA) Mixed media on canvas 37 x 59 inches 2014
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Canaguararte Zoo Luis Cuevas Acrylic on Canvas 31 x 31 inches 2015
I don’t wake up (Yo no me despierto) Luis Cuevas (VENEZUELA) Acrylic on Canvas 24 x 31 inches 2009 10
SOLD The bird and worm (El pรกjaro y gusano) Luis Cuevas (VENEZUELA) Acrylic on canvas 59 x 51 inches 2012
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Bruno García was born in 1967 in Punto Fijo, Falcón State. He is a national prize winning artist in Venezuela and has received international recognitions. He was awarded the Gold Medal from the XIII Salon International in Herouville, France. Bruno García has exhibited across Venezuela, United States, Canada, France, Switzerland, Spain, Cuba, Mexico, Bolivia, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Colombia, and Argentina. With refinement in both painting and sculpture, he explores three historic art periods which remain a constant source of inspiration for his work. The strongest influence is the Rock Art and the Caves of Altamira, which bare the extraordinary prehistoric murals of the powerful sacred animals on the walls and ceilings of the caves. The art of ancient Egypt where he articulates a strong interest in their archaic cult of death; and finally, the Italian Renaissance, including the Sistine Chapel where Michelangelo achieved his most famous and beautiful masterpiece.
Bruno García Punto Fijo (Venezuela)
The work of Bruno García, whether drawing, painting or sculpting, does not give up on the representation of the two stages; the inferior thing and the superior; the human and the divine; the land and the significant thing. In this respect, Garcia’s sacred beasts and warriors have spirits that possess a powerful energy and presence on the canvas and with every brush stroke he creates their cosmic universe that has no boundaries or limitations.
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Sacred Beasts (Bestias Sagradas) Bruno GarcĂa (VENEZUELA) Mixed media on Canvas 24 x 20 inches 2011
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Sacred Beasts (Bestias Sagradas) Bruno GarcĂa (VENEZUELA) Mixed media on Canvas 24 x 20 inches 2011
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Untitled, from Atacama project (Sin TĂtulo, del proyecto Atacama) Johnny Mendoza (VENEZUELA) Mixed media on Canvas 20 x 20 inches 2013 13
Johnny Mendoza Maracay (Venezuela) was born in Maracay, Aragua State. Since 1992 he has participated in more than 16 solo exhibitions, including one in Colombia, as well as numerous national and international group exhibitions. His works have been awarded nationally, including his participation in the National Salon of Art in April 2012. When observing, studying and analyzing the works of Johnny Mendoza, it is unavoidable to stop hearing voices framed in the history of the beginning of Latin America civilization, inviting us to explore beyond the most intimate that is offered by time and space. There is where the most arraigned feelings of the human condition take communion. He conduces the observer to an infinite humane atmosphere, digging in this ancestral culture that flows for Latin American people’ blood transporting us to our origins1. 1 According to the poet Cesar Blanco. 2013.
Untitled, From “Tepuis” Series (Sin título, de la serie Tepuis) Johnny Mendoza (VENEZUELA) Mixed media on Canvas - restored 36 x 48 inches 2014 16
Atacama project I, II, III and IV (Proyecto Atacama I, II, III y IV) Johnny Mendoza (VENEZUELA) Mixed media on Canvas 10 x 10 inches 2013
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Alonso Agüin Maracaibo (Venezuela) was born in Maracaibo, Zulia State. Alonso Agüin is a self-taught artist. In his own words, “time has been my best mentor. This, together with my desire and efforts to define a geometrical proposal, including those colors that define us as “Zulianos”. Alonso has created a style that is named “Ingenito” (born with you, not engendered), which has been group exhibited both nationally and abroad including the Tantow Gallery, in Germany in 2011. By using basic colors and geometries, the artist creates perceptions where the observer can see virtual volumes, scenes, and feel temperatures and sense of situations. All through the appearance of an art that constructs, that intrigues, and art with its own ingenito light.
Thor, king of cube (Thor, el Rey del cubo) Alonso Agüin (VENEZUELA) Mixed media on Wood panel 8 x 10 inches 2015
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The face of the King (El “Face” del Rey) Alonso Agüin (VENEZUELA) Mixed media on Wood panel 8 x 10 inches 2015
Dina Atencio Maracaibo (Venezuela) was born in 1981 in Maracaibo, Zulia State. She graduated from the School of Fine Arts Julio Arraga. Most recently, she did an artistic residence in Prague, Czech Republic where she exhibited in the Latin Art Gallery. Using quick brushstrokes and stains, Dina Atencio develops a very feminine figurative painting style, with elongated bodies full of sensuality and surrounded by an aura of tranquility, uncertainty and waiting, taking the spectator beyond the obvious. According to Carlos Ferrer from Radio Praha “In her artwork, we find a world of bohemia, which is vaguely timeless: musicians, actresses, dancers, jokers, isolated from any scenario that could situate them and dressed with attire that resembles the style of the early XX century, a period which Atencio, as she confess, feels attracted to.�
Princess (Infanta) Dina Atencio (VENEZUELA) Mixed media on Canvas 20 x 39 inches 2013 20
Ricardo Reyes Maracaibo (Venezuela) Ricardo Reyes was born in Maracaibo, Zulia State. His artworks reflect the transcendence, imperceptible for many, of trivial and daily use objects, what these say, beyond their utilitarian importance. Of his early artwork Hugo Figueroa Brett tell us: “His baroque decided painting discovers details, as if the artist did not add matter, instead it starts discovering what is palpable in the skin of sustenance and environment. Nothing is strange in Reyes’ painting and nothing is arbitrary. If the shape in an instant looks for a different posture, it is justified by the contiguity of another that ambient the pupil immediately, completing the extravagant shape and turning it into a familiar one. 21
Floral (Floral) Ricardo Reyes (VENEZUELA) Oil on Canvas 28 x 35 inches 2014
Is the loss of identity of Latin America, the logical consequence of the construction of the Western civilization? He asks, “Are they all seen as one person, one village?”. Is it possible for them to live independently or are they full of stereotypes imposed on them from the outside world that suffocates their culture?
Oscar Casanova Niño San Juán de Colón (Venezuela)
Oscar Casanova proposes to eliminate stereotypes and discover the true identity of the South American continent and suggests that it needs to resist the historical amnesia.
was born 1970 in San Juán de Colón, Tachira State that borders on Colombia. Oscar Casanova graduated from Escuela de Artes Plásticas Cristobal Rojas in Caracas. Casanova’s work has been shown in numerous exhibitions in Venezuela along with international exhibitions in Ecuador, Peru, Canada, Colombia, Bolivia, Spain, Switzerland and France.
In simpler terms, the paper boats represent the men and women of Latin America, seeking the history of their culture that gives them a true sense of themselves. The boat struggling to remain afloat, symbolizes a fragile identity, unable to recognize itself, and with the absence of certainty, it navigates the stormy open seas. It needs to tell a story and skeptical to a reference point, has to reach a common destiny, a safe harbor.
His work reproduces the Latin American environment and ambience. He does this with the use of strong and pure colors, the changes in tones, the sheen, and brightness of the tropics and the mist of the mountain ranges. And it all reflects on the tranquility of its people. Elements in his works such as the paper boats and calla lilies represent much more than the beautiful images created in his canvas. Casanova poses fundamental questions with his work, had a committed approach and sends a strong message.
The calla lilies are a metaphor of hope as they await the boats arrival and represent a better future. The emblematic flower in many ancient cultures, used in the struggles for the construction and rescue of aesthetics and cultural identities is shown in the simplicity of its essence. The lilies wait for the awakening of a continent that should claim its position in the world, that has been denied.
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Horizon intervened II (Horizonte intervenido II) Oscar Casanova (VENEZUELA) Mixed media on Canvas 47 x 32 inches 2013
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Antonio Vargas Maracaibo (Venezuela) was born in 1955 in Maracaibo, Zulia State. He was introduced to the art of sculpture through his father, a famous stone master in the city, who cut and installed marble in the city’s Bolivar Square, Urdaneta’s Park, Central Bank of Maracaibo, the Bank of Maracaibo, and the Basilica San Juan de Dios. Antonio worked with his father until he discovered an exceptional ability to craft marble and other materials. He later went to the Julio Arraga School of Art in Maracaibo, obtaining his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1986. Since then, he has participated in many group and solo exhibitions, both nationally and internationally.
Muse Selena (Musa Selena) Antonio Vargas (VENEZUELA) Carved stone, mounted on marble 6 x 7 x 2 inches 2015
Antonio Vargas sculpture work, in addition of being of extraordinary quality, highlights an essence with many details. Using primary expressions, and aboriginal characteristics, we find in the natural simplicity of stone, a renovation of rituals of our ancestors. His “Muses” are an allegory to the great mother, the nature, as represented by many cultures. 24
Carlos Ramos Ambato (Ecuador) Carlos Ramos Diaz was born in Ambato, Ecuador in 1954. In 1975 he moved to Caracas, Venezuela and lived there for four years before moving to Maracaibo, his final residence, later acquiring Venezuelan citizenship. Carlos Ramos Diaz became an active artist in 1970, inspired by great masters such as Van Gogh, Renoir, Rembrandt, and Kandinsky. This inspiration defined his early years; his voyage through impressionism, collages, and their combination with aspects of South and Central America aboriginal cultures: Inca, Maya, and Azteca centered his colorful work through masks, totems, and figures related to these three ancestral cultures. Currently, more focused on abstract art, he still preserves certain features of these ancestral symbols. Carlos Ramos Diaz is currently researching other proposals of the aboriginal cultures.
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Totem (T贸tem) Carlos Ramos (ECUADOR) Oil on Canvas 8 x 16 inches 2013
Astral, I and II [Diptych] (Sideral I y II, DĂptico) Carlos Ramos (ECUADOR) Oil on Canvas 19 x 19 inches 2014
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Maira Reverol Puertos de Altagracia (Venezuela) was born in 1969 in Puertos de Altagracia. She graduated from the School of Fine Arts Neptal铆 Rinc贸n in 1996. She has participated in many group exhibitions, in Venezuela and internationally, including USA, and Italy. Awarded with several awards, her work is part of many private collections located in Spain, England, USA, Italy and Venezuela. Maira Reverol artwork is a narrative of many characters that seems to rebuild a new form of human coexistence with the freshness and charm of childhood. Her characters, as small dolls, live in a complex kind of mechanical city, built in the space as a platform. Her style seems to represent part of a ideographic writing that resembles the old codes and the modern comics that makes easy the understanding of the message of an idealized life, through the tales and games of childhood as a way of survive in equilibrium. 27
Opus and grace of play (Obra y gracia del juego) Maira Reverol (VENEZUELA) Mixed media on Canvas 14x14 inches 2013
Color of grace I (Color de gracia I) Maira Reverol (VENEZUELA) Mixed media on Canvas 16 x 20 inches 2014 28
Sara Storey Merida (Venezuela) was born in Merida, within a family of artists. Sara Storey is part of the neo expressionism movement, in which the only inspiration element is the human being, with their costumes and habits. She shows with restlessness our activities, distractions and problems, with a background that form a stage. Then, the essential representation take the form of a human, in a paltry way, as if their worry was more to “appear” instead of “be”. Sara Storey is multifaceted, she studied violin, visual arts, French, engineering, and teaching arts to children and adults. In 2010, Sara Storey won the 1st prize in the Armando Reveron contest, professor category, in the Universidad Catolica Cecilio Acosta. In 2014 she was awarded by the Maracaibo city hall for her contributions to the promotion and teaching of arts. 29
Conversation (La Conversación) Sara Storey (VENEZUELA) Mixed media on box, MDF 12 x 12x 4 inches 2015
Open Hours: RSVP for exhibits by phone or email alberto@uniars.com (469) 525-1496
UNIARS Alberto Montilla Eudomar Silva 1200 Conroe Dr. Allen, TX
Art in Venezuela 2015 - 2016