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Aldo Castillo Gallery > Art

Art Galleries

Abulurach, Rodolfo (Guatemala) : "Rodolfo Abularach was born in 1933 in Guatemala City, Guatemala. An outstanding painter, printmaker and sculptor, Abularach is a true Latin American Master. His “eyes” surrealistic, geometrical and fantastic expose the illusive secrets of the human soul. He has gained important awards and prizes in several countries. He has had individual exhibitions in the United States, Germany, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Ecuador, Sweden, Panama, Bolivia and Chile and is permanently included in the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of the Americas, Washington, D.C. and the Museum of Graphic Art, Cairo, Egypt, among several others."

Abulurach, Rodolfo (Guatemala)

Amundson, Jay (USA) : Jay Amundson, USA Originally from Wisconsin, graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education in 1996. Went on to study interior design in Chicago at the Harrington Institute of Interior Design, graduated in 2002. Currently living in Chicago and working as a designer. Works in acrylic: Style of these works described as simplified abstractions of nature. Every element is pared down to its most basic form to convey its meaning. A simplified vocabulary of line, curve and solid fields of color create illusions of land, water, and sky, and capture the essence of a quit moment or place. Relationships between each shape imply movement and stasis, and the desire for balance. The ideas of nature, modern architecture, and music are always present.

Amundson, Jay (USA)

Andrade, Raymundo (Mexico) : Raymundo Andrade, (Mexico) A Doctor of Medicine and a Doctor of Letters in History, Raymundo Andrade fuses a unique academic background with his art. Suspending his images in a timeless reverie, a delicate veil of warm muted tones prevails on the surfaces of Andrade’s work. The artist has a consummate interest in the dichotomies that exist between the past and present, combining the pagan with the religious, and society with science. His works clearly pay tribute to both the native and Spanish cultures that are such a part of the Latin American vast cultural heritage. He takes the viewer through a roller coaster ride of what is real and surreal. This ultimately results in a nostalgic journey that maps paradoxes of his childhood lived memory. Andrade’s images can also be identified with the subject matter of traditional Mexican colonial art, the handling of landscape and still life with that of the Dutch masters, such as Vermeer, and the handling of atmospheric traditions with that of Leonardo da Vinci.

Andrade, Raymundo (Mexico)

Arria, Maria Cristina (Venezuela) : Maria Cristina Arria, Venezuela María Cristina Arria, was born in Mérida, Venezuela and has had solo shows in Argentina, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Greece, the United States and Venezuela. Her explorations of line, form and space reflect a mastery of the most essential values in sculpture. Extracting the dynamic qualities of her forms and transmitting unique concepts of abstraction, achieving intimate revelations through her work. Much of her sculpture has a linguistic or code-like nature and certainly an explorative intent. Her work has been included in important national and international shows. For, From a Woman’s Perspective’s exhibition, Arria’s inspiration came to life while noticing how the world changes in front of one’s eyes and thus was born “Paisajes de Carretera” (highway landscapes). In her travels from Caracas to small towns in her native country, Arria was inspired by the patterns of materials carried by transporting trucks on the highways. These cargo shipments included pipes, aluminum, wood, cattle, fruits, vegetables, or sometimes even household furniture; varying in medium, texture, color and pattern conveyed in geometrical forms. These resources, often overlooked and disconnected from our personal experience, reminded Arria of the necessities and changes on human life, such as us leaving dreams behind.

Arria, Maria Cristina (Venezuela)

Asencio, John :

Asencio, John

Updated: Jun 10, 2008 12:45pm PST

Ashley, Scott (USA) : In my recent series of sculptures, I have taken common everyday objects and materials and modified them in a way that brings into question their original purpose and meaning. By re-contextualizing these familiar objects the viewer is asked not to rely on their pre-determined definitions but is instead challenged to use their own personal experience to re-interpret them. My work addresses many issues of gender and sexuality. I work with materials that are typically considered feminine or masculine such as yarn or heavy metals as well as everyday objects that have specific cultural gender roles attached. I try to address the psychological attachments we have to these everyday objects by distorting and mutating them visually. The amendments I make to these objects are simple, deliberate and clear. The sculptures are presented in a minimal format so neither the original purpose nor my modifications to them are disguised. It is my intention to make work that is visually exciting and intellectually challenging and that examines the subjectivity of world that surrounds us.

Ashley, Scott (USA)

Betancourt, Luisa :

Betancourt, Luisa

Updated: May 27, 2008 1:27pm PST

Bonomi, Maria (Brazil) : Maria Bonomi, Brazil Born 1935, Meina, Itália. Bonomi settled in São Paulo, Brazil in 1944. After learning engraving with Lívio Abramo, she traveled to the United States from 1956 to 1957 to study graphic art at Columbia University. Back in Brazil, she established the Engraving Studio in São Paulo, together with Lívio Abramo, where she taught until 1963. Among the several awards and exhibitions of her work as an engraver, the most important were her participations in the São Paulo Modern Art Salon (1955 and 1960). According to José Teixeira Leite, Maria Bonomi's engravings cannot strictly be described as either figurative or non-figurative. They tend toward the monumental. Lines do not play an important role in her engravings. In addition, there is a noticeable preference for clashes of volumes, a dispute between curves and straight lines. Bonomi has participated in exhibitions throughout the world including Jerusalem, Europe and the Untied States.

Bonomi, Maria (Brazil)

Bou, Antonio (Puerto Rico) : Antonio Bou, Puerto Rico "Antonio Bou was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1944. His artistic liberation, in terms of the use of colors, textures and unabashedly sensual themes give Bou a reputation of a rebellious artist, free with passionate creativity and deep knowledge of human sexuality. His work conveys influences of European Master’s and the stylized forms of self-taught African and Latin American art. Bou is favored by respected art critics and his distinctive style is a powerful attraction to a contemporary and intellectual generation of collectors. "

Bou, Antonio (Puerto Rico)

Calvo, Salvador (Spain) : Salvador Calvo,Spain Salvador Calvo was born in the Malaga province on the Mediterranean coast of Spain where he lived for 23 years, followed by short periods in London, Paris and a decade in Madrid. In 1982, he moved to the United States where he is currently based in the Chicago area. His imagery is a combination of opposites that inspire and intrigue the imagination. He utilizes the geometric and the organic, and then integrates this with the contemporary and past. Calvo’s sculptures also explore the relationship between man and nature by utilizing both raw and cooked materials such as wood, marble, and metal. Investigating the possibilities between myth and history, he focuses on the inscriptions of the Egyptians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Persians to conceptualize the creative act among gods, the fertility of love, and the mystery of water and earth. His work is an anthropologic mosaic of history. With these contrasting themes and ideas, symbolic transformations are made. Calvo has participated in 12 solo exhibitions, and his work is also featured in various prestigious and public collections including The Museum of Contemporary Art, Spain, Casa de Cultura de Villarreal, Spain, and the Instituto Cervantes, Chicago.

Calvo, Salvador (Spain)

Caminero, Maximo (Dominican Republic) : “I have just celebrated many years of continuous work, a period relatively short for a creator. The success and acceptances have surprised me, I believe the success is due to the fact that I have always painted to please myself and never accepted commissions. Neither have I repeated myself in a series when it has been successful. I am always lost, looking for the pictorial mystery that I capture in the depths of the unconscious, to define itself, to talk to me and to explain what circumstances were the reason for its presence: light, rough, sometimes rude… and others, sublime.” Born in the Dominican Republic in 1962, Maximo Caminero’s body of work is endorsed by innumerable prestigious critics. With over more than twenty invitations to group shows in different countries of the Americas and Europe, this plastic artist is determined to conquer the world. He has presented fourteen individual exhibitions, his works have been auctioned by prestigious houses in the Americas and some works are part of museums and important art collections such as the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Puerto Rico (MAC).

Caminero, Maximo (Dominican Republic)

Carlson, Richard (United States) : Richard Carlson, United States "Richard A. Carlson is an award-winning abstract painter. He has achieved notable success for his skilled use of acrylics on paper or wooden panel surfaces that are both complex and decorative with an illusion of depth that fools ones eye. His finished work reflects the image of a photograph that is still being developed in a darkroom. A build up of multiple acrylic layers and the application of geometrical shapes synthesize simplicity and complexity, suppleness and rigidity, with the intuitive and the analytical, and results in a 3-dimensional-like illusion. Carlson’s work has been shown widely in the eastern, Midwestern, and southern parts of the United States, and is represented in national and international private and corporate collections."

Carlson, Richard (United States)

Carrasco, Marcos : Spanish born Marcos Carrascos' artistic style is unique because of his intense study between the figurative and the abstract. Carrasco tends to accent in his creative process a strong dependence on technology, which he uses in the final execution of his work. Carrascos work has been awarded national prizes in painting and drawing. He has received such honors as the Frida Kahlo de Madrid and el Group CL-Caja Madrid. His works are in important collections, such as in the Contemporary Engraving Section of the National Library of Madrid, and at such international companies as Grey & Trace, Young & Rubicam, Vitruvio Leo Burnett and DMBB D' Arcy of New York.

Carrasco, Marcos

Carvalho, Adriana (Brazil) : Adriana Carvalho, Brazil The art of Adrianna Carvalho reflects the important influence that the expressive spirit African culture has had on her native country. Her works are insightful reflections on the pressures and ideologies society imposes on sexual identities, sexual relationships, and the subsequent consequences they have had. Her sculptures are weighted with an articulate sense of awareness, and a forceful presence of reality. Selected Comments “Minimallism’s geometric perfection is replaced by the vagaries of decay and the human touch” Fred Camper - Chicago Reader “The forms are simple, abstracted from nature... they are delicately rendered and humanized, but this sense of humanity turns violent...the work suggests danger not only with its outer armor but also in the possibility that, like the Trojan horse, something might be hidden inside” Bertha Husband - Chicago Reader.

Carvalho, Adriana (Brazil)

Castillo, Aldo (Nicaragua) : Aldo Castillo, Nicaragua Aldo Castillo who was born in Nicaragua in the midst of a civil war that has had well known consequences. Since his arrival in The United States in 1985, Castillo has witnessed the illegal war against Nicaragua, The Iran-Contra Affair, the Invasion of Panama, the Gulf War and the current Afghanistan and Iraqi Wars. Aldo Castillo is a Gallery Director, Curator, Art Dealer, Artist and Human Rights Activist. “The history of conflict, aggression, and war shows no human evolution. We have not learned the difference between right and wrong. Nor have we learned from previous powerful leaders, such as Gandhi or Mandela, that violence is no solution for violence”.

Castillo, Aldo (Nicaragua)

Castillo, Baltazar (USA) : Mr. Castillo was born in Chicago, raised in the Austin area, a neighborhood on the city’s far west side. As an adolescent growing up in some of the most turbulent times of the 20th century, Mr. Castillo observed distinct differences between himself as a Mexican American in an (at the time) mostly white, blue-collar neighborhood. As an exotic member of a gang of mostly Irish and Italian thugs he was able to persevere through sheer ‘cool’, picking up on the aesthetic of the streets, that peculiar ‘street suave’ necessary to survival, (unique) to the west Madison street area of the 1960s.

Castillo, Baltazar (USA)

Cobo, Jesus (Ecuador) : Jesus Cobo, Ecuador The work of Jesus Cobo is, at its base, connected with the everyday. However, his sculptural work at once reaches a symbolic dimension originating with his relationship with the social environment. The path of Cobo, who is one of the greatest modern sculptors today, is enriched with an extremely personal vision of the thematic breadth that concerns him. Landscape, natural elements, and religious motifs are approached in a decidedly exceptional manner, the still life. Cobo plays with spaces, the masses, voids with a great ease, selecting carefully the principal planes of each composition. Marble, metal, and wood surrender obediently in the hands of this skilled artist, as if materials of his own creation without need of truce.

Cobo, Jesus (Ecuador)

Colombino, Carlos (Paraguay) : Carlos Colombino, Paraguay Wood contains a movement that is present within the grain; it is this flow pattern that inspires Carlos Colombino when he carves into a slab of this material in order to generate a form. Later in his artistic endeavor, he adds minimal color to areas that highlight geometric monumental forms that originate from the depths of the imagination. The results are shapes and images that take on a life and reality of their own and which exist in a surreal environment that was created especially for them to thrive. Political and social themes also purvey here. Human rights confront dictatorship as his shapes are woven together but on the verge of falling apart, straining against one another. Colombino's work marks the climax of the Paraguayan plastic arts' entry into contemporary modern art. He has traveled to and studied in Paris and Madrid, but a powerful connection with Paraguay lured him home where he currently resides. Throughout his long career, Colombino has produced a coherent and powerful body of work. His accomplishments include Inter-American Award Gabriela Mistral in Washington D.C., Special Prize for Painting at the Bienal Internacional del Deporte in Madrid, Spain, International Prize for Engraving at Bienal de San Juan de Puerto Rico, and first prize at the Sao Paulo Bienal in Sao Paulo, Brazil. His work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, and continues to be a strong presence in the Latin American art community.

Colombino, Carlos (Paraguay)

Crewe, Albert (Great Britian) : Albert Crewe, Great Britian The challenge of life drawing and working with conventional materials interests this artist who specialized in physics and obtained a doctorate in the field. Albert Crewe is a member of the Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Art and is currently focusing on sculpture projects. The fact that he was born in Yorkshire, England, where there is an abundance of stone buildings, perhaps heightened his interest in the art of sculpture. Albert Crewe forms part of a long tradition of artistically talented scientists such as Nobel Prize winning scientist, Albert Michelson and Richard Feynmann. In fact, science and art share several important similarities, both generate advances through knowledge and experience ultimately achieving a new simplicity and clarity, and both deal with creation and innovation. However, for Albert Crewe there exists one important distinction, “Science appeals to the mind while art appeals to the senses.” Sensuality and particularly “tactility” are, in fact, central themes of his work. Even the stone he uses Crewe believes the epitome of beauty lies in the female form, and chooses alabaster as his stone of choice due to its life-like qualities. Alabaster's thermal conductivity is low so that it does not conduct heat away from the hand. The result is an appropriately warm stone that reflects the qualities of the skin. Many things happen to influence the direction the work is taking, including finding new faults in the stone or a striking peculiarity such as the grain or a patch of color. Much of the time, the stone often takes charge of the whole proceedings and determines the outcome by itself. Equally spontaneously derived is his bronzes that are the result of experimenting with clay.

Crewe, Albert (Great Britian)

Dali, Salvador (Spain) : Salvador Dali, Spain Brief story about our Dali collection: Before his death Dali gave everything to the Spanish State, which charged the Foundation Salvador Dali in Figueras to run Dali’s business. So after Dali’s death, John Heinz signed a new contract with the Foundation Salvador Dali in Spain. He and Robert Descharnes (Expert of Dali for Christie’s and Sotheby’s) started to cast the collection of these Dali’s sculptures. The foundry Bonvicini was Dali’s foundry. The directors of this foundry are Fausto and Giovanna Bonvicini. They used to work for Dali, Miro, César, Ernst, De Chirico, and Appel. They are still working for Arman. So for our Dali’s sculptures there is only 1 posthumous edition of originals (originals are on 12 or 8) and only 1 posthumous edition of multiples (some of multiples are on 1/450 to 450/450 and others on 1/150 to 150/150). Dali himself decided the number of casts so we cannot cast more than that because the powerful Foundation Dali will not allow us to do it. We are working in tandem with them for sculptures. These works were never shown to the general public in the United States, except 3 originals, 2 angels and a Christ at the Museum of Catholic Art in NY. Aldo Castillo Gallery has an exclusive representation for sale of these works in the USA.

Dali, Salvador (Spain)

Famous, Michael (USA) : I grew up in a small university town in the Midwest and we lived two blocks from the Ball State University Art Gallery, which had a great collection. Before I could walk my mother would take me in her arms, and when I reached seven or eight years old I would go alone and look at my favorites: Irene Rice Periera, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun. It was my first lesson in History (time), Form (visual), and Thought (abstract). Born in Muncie, Indiana, Michael Famous began his art studies in 1962 at Ball State University in Muncie. In 1970, he attended Yale University Summer School of Music and Art on a fellowship, and went on to gain his BFA from the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1971. In 1985, he was awarded an Illinois Arts Council Special Projects Grant.

Famous, Michael (USA)

Fernandez, Magdalena (Spain) : Magdalena Fernandez, Spain Magdalena Fernández reaches in her works a huge impression that goes directly to the spectator’s soul. Her technique and the treatment of the materials make up the strength and passion in her sculptures, they have an irresistible mystery that makes them unique. The stone, timber, bronze are transformed in pieces, which have all the human strength. In her works, serenity is not always the winner. Once you have observed her works, you can understand better the abstract concept of eternity. Tito López. Creative Manager.

Fernandez, Magdalena (Spain)

Fiorda, Daniel (Argentina) : Daniel Fiorda 's sculpture breaks up the logic of representation characteristic of traditional Western-art sculpture. His works are made with discarded metals assembled in a complex and busy structure that recalls a Neo-baroque approach to art. The sculpture's material becomes a morphological generator of its figurative shape. As an archeologist, Fiorda captures the "presence" and the elusive meaning of each fragment, - a glaring coin made of copper, a motor screw, part of a car chassis, discarded remnants of the industrial world. Fiorda creates a sort of phenomenological machinery with an intrinsic strength; a sort of anthropomorphic figure possessed by a radical ethos . The viewer encounters thick masses of curvilinear metal shapes and centrifugal forces, with sharp ends as weapons or extremities as legs expanding over the space. They articulate memories of an ancestral body, and evoke biological entities, -an insect, a bird, a fish, - or a human body in a critical process. In Fiorda's sculptures, mechanical heroes, warriors or animals are in a continuous metamorphosis. Their contorted bodies seem to perform a drastic and abrupt dance, as it is in birth or in death. For these figures, it is a moment of transcendental transition. The corpses are tangled and articulated in sudden zigzags. The massive use of the torch has completely melted their bodies,- fragments of copper, iron or aluminum,- and has converted them into a compact and a prosthetic mass.

Fiorda, Daniel (Argentina)

Fort, Maria Jose (Uruguay) : Maria Jose Fort, Uruguay During college Maria José Fort discovered her vocation as an artist. Starting from an intuitive process, the main objective of this Uruguayan artist is to create agile works of art, in which the process plays a determinant part. The action creates a different variety of rhythms, sometimes event violent ones. The spontaneity and fluidity in her work make the artist manipulation of color and line important. Both elements become a language that helps translate the images from Fort’s imagination into canvas. The language is used as a dialect, which narrates independent truths and shows worlds in which the free association of the spectator plays a decisive manner by idealizing and constructing an atmosphere full of fantasy. The harmony of the colors is driven by a sense of estheticism however application of the colors on the canvas is often instinctive. The strength of Fort’s artwork lies in its color, its large strokes and its powerful expression. Painting is for her a way of expressing her feelings as well as a propulsion of her energy.

Fort, Maria Jose (Uruguay)

Fridman, Liber (Argentina) : Liber Fridman, Argentina Liber Fridman, like Marc Chagall, attempts challenges at categorization. A direct descendant of Russian Jews who immigrated to Argentina at the turn of the century, Fridman has lived, worked and traveled all over North and South America and Europe.. His personal background is almost as broad as his interests and influences. Reaching his final destination, Lima, Fridman became an authentic researcher in the Pre-Colombian past and undertook major restoration projects of the paintings in the region's temples. Utilizing remnants of Pre-Colombian cloth and various pigments found in tombs, Liber Fridman is a truly innovative modern artist that dives into the remote past to reveal a combination of painting and collage that evokes tradition and spirit. The works, done on large or small canvases, depict, often from an aerial view, scenes inspired by Pre-Columbian mythology. They are the fantasies of the searching artist, imagined memories. Through a life of extensive travel, research, community service and self-exploration, Fridman found his artistic vision, one that incorporates a modern tone while reflecting on a mythical past. A master of composition and color, Fridman, achieves the dichotomy of ancient and modern seamlessly, while still preserving the fantastic implications of his subjects. His compositions allude to his own deep imaginative feelings, while addressing the truth that is universal to all human beings: pain, solitude, faith, hope and love.

Fridman, Liber (Argentina)

Friedberg, Pedro (Mexico) : Pedro Friedeberg, Mexico Pedro Friedeberg was born in Florence, Italy in 1936 to German-Jewish parents that left Germany to escape the war. Three years after his birth, he moved with his parents to Mexico and became a citizen.. Having shown an early inclination for drawing and reading, he studied architecture at the Universidad Ibero-Americana, where he was profoundly influenced by the teaching of Mathías Goeritz, a German artist. Under Goeritz influence he created architectural models that fused diverse elements into single structures and were often designed to be non-fictional. His educational background ranged from Medieval to Art Nouveau and his work anticipated a post-modernist style. Then, in 1960, he was invited to join a group based on Dadiast principles: the creation of anti-art for art’s sake. Los Hartos, The Fed Up, was a rejection of political painting and provided an alternative to the social painting of the time. This organization led Friedeberg to part in another direction that would define his work - he believed in the autonomy of aestheticism. Apart from Friedeberg’s non-fictional architectural fantasies, he began producing furniture that rejected the predominantly international style of architecture and design that was being taught in Mexico. After designing his first chair, Friedeberg went on to design tables, couches, and love seats. This body of work, along with Friedeberg's obsessively crowded and meticulously detailed canvases, often included references to Tantric Scriptures, Aztec Codices, Catholicism, Hinduism and symbols of the occult. Although his paintings, filled to overflowing with surprise, were sometimes described as examples of Surrealism or fantastic realism, they are not easily definable in terms of conventional categories. He used architectural drawing as the medium through which he created unusual compositions and also designed furniture and useless objects, admitting that his artistic activity was rooted in boredom. This sense of irony and surfeit imparted to his pictures, through the hallucinatory repetition of elements, an asphyxiating formal disorder. Friedeberg’s work is a product of highly conscious, if not self-conscious, thought.

Friedberg, Pedro (Mexico)

Gana, Ignacio (Chile) : Ignacio Gana's work does not want to be another thing than a walk along the map of the intimate desires, a walk opened for the carnal, clear thing in the image, and also in the color. It is thus as without realizing one introduces us in ambience of a very attractive intimacy, dominated by a temporary dimension, which makes us witnesses of an action that does not happen, which does not advance, of a still...

Gana, Ignacio (Chile)

Garcia, Carlos Alberto (Venezuela) :

Garcia, Carlos Alberto (Venezuela)

Garcia, Sergio (Cuba) : Sergio Garcia, Cuba "Sergio García was born in 1959 in la Habana, Cuba. In exile in Miami since 1969 he has been able to explore his past and present through means of art, constantly dealing with such issues as the consequences of social and political environments, the human condition and the search for personal identity. In reason and physicality, his works are produced with relevant techniques , strong in meaning yet beautiful and innovative. Today Sergio García appears comfortable in a responsible role that he has gained through the eyes or art critics and museum curators. Among his awards, honors and collections he is included in “Latin American, Artists, Signatures and Monograms”, Museum of the Americas Archives, Washington D.C. and in the permanent collection of the Lowe Art Museum, Miami Florida. "

Garcia, Sergio (Cuba)

Gerzso, Gunther (Mexico) : Gunther Gerzso, Mexico Gunther Gerzso was born on June 17, 1915 in Mexico City. Gerzso's Hungarian-born father, Oscar, moved to Mexico in the early 1890s and his mother, Dore Wendland, was a singer and pianist from Berlin who immigrated to Mexico in 1906. Before he pioneered abstract art in his native country, Gerzso worked as a set designer at the Cleveland Playhouse. During those years, from 1935 to 1941, he began developing as a fine artist, exploring various styles. It is works from this period that are being exhibited at Aldo Castillo Gallery. In 1973 Gerzso received a Guggenheim Fellowship and in 1978 he was awarded the highest artistic/scientific distinction given by the Mexican government, Premio Nacional de Artes y Ciencias. Gerzso’s works of art are part of the collections of major museums throughout the world. Gerzso died on April 21, 2000 in Mexico City.

Gerzso, Gunther (Mexico)

Gomez, Miguel (San Domingo) : Miguel Gomez, San Domingo Born in Santo Domingo in 1954, Gomez attended the National school of Fine Arts and graduated in 1983 as a drawing teacher. From 1983, he taught at the Candido Bido Art Center and conducted seminars for painters at the Dominican American Cultural Institute. Gomez relies heavily on Afro-Caribbean roots that have been the greatest influence in his country. His frenetic scenes define morphology through the use of light and movement. The works vibrate with emotion, activated by personal experience, they appeal to an inner secular symbolism. His paintings pay homage to the color, the dance and the carnival culture of his Caribbean isle. Gomez’s works are often a reflection of sights encountered on the streets of San Domingo. He works in both oil and acrylic, but always fragmented, semi-abstract style. His images emerge as pieces of a puzzle from a multitude of patches of brilliant colors, mostly in a primary palette. These patches vary from splashes in some paintings to more defined geometric shapes. At times Gomez’ paintings take on a fluid look, while other works are cubist in character, but the basic concept remains the same: images are dismantled in components to form an abstract picture which, under close examination, still retains its representational aspect. Miguel Gomez stands as one the premier Caribbean artist to exhibit outside of his native islands. His works have been featured in over sixty exhibitions in the Caribbean, Latin America and the United States.

Gomez, Miguel (San Domingo)

González, Eladio (Cuba) : Eladio González, Cuba Eladio González was born in Itabo, Matanzas, Cuba in 1939. He studied at the Matanzas Fine Art School and at Havana’s School of Design. He graduated from San Alejandro School of Fine Art, as a Professor of Drawing and Sculpture. He moved to Chicago in 1968 and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and was awarded the Cintas Fellowship to travel and study in Madrid, Spain, and Paris, France. González refers to himself as Cuban-Afro-Chinese, much like Wifredo Lam, who influenced González’s technique considerably. This cultural mixture is evident in the vitality of his works, which reflect the sensuality and anguish of cultural conflict. His work is in collections around the world, including the United States, South America, Spain and Germany

González, Eladio (Cuba)

González Perlado, Esperanza : "The analysis of my work is based on a history made of blood and embrace, whose foundations are in the climate, in the language and in the words which convey the feelings we share. In some of my paintings women look at the light of the Mediterranean Sea head on, and in other works they let themselves be embraced by Aztecan symbols with the serenity and placidity that the union of different cultures provides them. Machineries, dreams and clocks of incomplete hours which bring the hope of a timeless and transparent future, heads tattooed with the gods’ silence and hands that cling to the ancestors’ circle. All that is immortalized on wood in order to create a group of sounds and skins, with similar textures, in which the light works as a human, indestructible and latent particle. In the end, nothing is what it appears, hopes and dreams are made of distrustful substances; keys, don’t forget, are used to open doors, but they may also be used to lock the flight of birds towards South"--Esperanza Gonzalez

González Perlado, Esperanza

Hastings Gill, Tanya (USA) : The Under Skin series was born out of a year of extensive international travel, which included six weeks in Cape Town, South Africa, and several months in Mumbai, India. The year highlighted and re-enforced how interconnected, interdependent and alike we all are. We all have impressions and memories we house under our skin and these influence how we react and function in the world. These impressions and memories shape us. Patterns, both conscious and unconscious, are created. These patterns affect our individual relations with the world and how we negotiate our internal and external lives. What would it mean to try and capture some of these moments in children - at the time in which the patterns are being created? The notion of the innocence of children is largely constructed by adults. I have not selected to work with children because of this illusion. Children know what is happening around them; they are very aware of their surroundings and station in life. Between child soldiers, street children, poverty, and crimes against children, I know that there are many children wiser to human natures, and human failings, than I. Despite the fact that many children’s lives are far from innocent, I believe that the values of childhood innocence must be preserved and fought for as a natural right. I have chosen to work with the subject matter of children due to their impressionability and to highlight the moment of the creation of a pattern. Under Skin is a collection of various children’s impressions. Rohit is running through a flock of pigeons. He is completely engaged in the activity. Nothing else is on his mind. He is enjoying his effect on the birds and their flight. I imagine this moment of engagement will stay with him and he will seek it out again and again. A pattern is being formed.

Hastings Gill, Tanya (USA)

Kulenovic, Maya (Yugoslavia) : Maya Kulenovic is a Canadian painter, living in Toronto. She was born in 1975 in Sarajevo, former Yugoslavia (now Bosnia Herzegovina). Maya Kulenovic has exhibited in seventeen solo exhibitions and over fourty group shows Canada wide, in the US, England, The Netherlands, Japan, South Korea and Turkey. Her paintings can be seen in numerous collections in North America, Europe and Turkey. She studied art at Chelsea College of Art and Design in London, England (MFA, 1998), Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto (AOCAD Honours, 1997) and Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul (1995). She is also an alumna of London Goodenough College in London, England (1997/98). Maya Kulenovic taught undergraduate courses in drawing, painting and art history (1999-2002), which she left to focus on her studio work.

Kulenovic, Maya (Yugoslavia)

Lam, Wifredo (Cuba) : Wifredo Lam, Cuba Born 1902, Sagua La Grande, Cuba - Died 1982, Paris Wifredo Lam studied at the San Alejandro Academy in Havana and at the San Fernando Academy in Madrid in 1923. In 1938 he went to Paris and met Picasso and the Surrealists. Lam exhibited in 1939 at the Galerie Pierre Loeb and worked in Picasso’s studio. He illustrated André Breton’s book Fata Morgana in 1940. In 1941 he sailed from Marseilles to Martinique with Andre Masson, André Breton, Claude Levi-strauss, Victor Braunner and others. He returned to Cuba in 1941 and developed a new awareness of Afro-Cuban traditions, as is reflected in his work of that period. During other Caribbean travels he became interested in vodou and incorporated its imagery into his paintings. In 1951 Lam returned to Paris, living there and in Italy. Lam’s work was included in the 1987-88 traveling exhibit, Art of Fantastic organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. 1992 was a particularly important year for the artist due to the amount of exhibitions dedicated to his work, among them: The Hirshorn Museum, Washington D.C., Crosscurrents of Modernism, Centro Cultural/Art Contemporaneo, Mexico City; Museo de Bellas Artes Collection in Havana, Cuba; America’s Society Art Gallery, New York; Wifredo Lam a retrospective of Works on Paper which traveled to Fundacio La Caixa in Barcelona; and the retrospective of Lam’s work that opened December 1992 at the Studio Museum of Harlem, Lam and his contemporaries: 1938-1952.

Lam, Wifredo (Cuba)

Lopez Cruz, Luis (Peru) :

Lopez Cruz, Luis (Peru)

Maldonado, Estuardo (Ecuador) :

Maldonado, Estuardo (Ecuador)

Marsh, Lorna (South Africa) : Lorna Marsh, South Africa "Lorna Marsh was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1949. Although Marsh's artistic vision may be grounded in her classical training she has developed a distinctive style that transcends standard interpretative mechanisms. She is a figurative expressionist who blends symbolism, surrealism, and expressionism that reflect a universal dialogue that addresses man's destructive relationship to himself and his environment. Marsh has had important solo shows at the Florida Museum of Hispanic and Latin American Art, Miami, Florida, the Jacabo Borges Museum, Caracas, Venezuela, and the João Ferreira Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa, among others. "

Marsh, Lorna (South Africa)

Matta, Roberto (Chile) : Roberto Matta, Chile Roberto Sebastian Antonio Matta Echaurren was born in Santiago, Chile in 1911. He studied architecture at the Universidad Catolica in Santiago. In 1933 Matta traveled to Paris and worked for two years as a draftsman in the Paris studio of famed architect Le Corbusier. While visiting his aunt in Madrid, he met Federico Garcia Lorca and Pablo Neruda. Neruda introduced Matta to Salvador Dali and Andre Breton. Impressed by Matta's drawings, Breton invited him to join the Surrealist group in 1937. Influenced by his association with the Surrealists and by Marcel Duchamp's theories of movement and process, Matta began to explore the realm of the subconscious and to develop an imagery of cosmic creation and destruction.

Matta, Roberto (Chile)

Mendive, Manuel (Cuba) : Manuel Mendive, Cuba Born in Havana in 1944, he attended the San Alejandro School and has been exhibiting throughout Europe, Africa, North and South America in solo shows and performances since 1975. His work is based on the voodoo themes and gods of “Santeria”: the artist is himself a “santo” or priest in the Afro-Cuban religion. Diploma Prix Nat'l Festival Pintura Cagnes Sur Mer France Premio Galería Espacio Latinoamericano I Bieniel de La Habana, Wifredo Lam Escuela San Alejandro, Pintura y Escultura La Habana, Cuba Premio Concurso Infantil en Tokio, Japón por la Sociedad Morinaga, UNESCO Premio Escultura Circulo Bellas Artes La Habana, Cuba Exhibitions 1993 Galería Expositum Ciudad México, D.F. 1993 Le Monde de L'Art Paris, France 1993 Museo Boshum Alemania 1992 Galería le Monde de L'Art Paris, France 1992 Sevilla '92, Pabellón de las Artes Spain 1991 21a. Bienal Internacional Sao Paulo, Brasil 1991 Museo Arte Moderno San Diego San Diego, CA 1990 25o. Salón Internacional de Arte de Zagreb Yugoslavia 1989 Galería Nesle Paris, France 1978 Museo Arte Contemporáneo Madrid, Spain 1975 Museo Nacional Tanzania 1964 Centro de Arte La Habana, Cuba

Mendive, Manuel (Cuba)

Mendizabal, Martin (Uruguay) : Martin Mendizabal, Uruguay Martín Mendizábal was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1960, and has studied in New York, Paris and in a number of places in Uruguay. Mendizábal has moved from neat, carefully conceived figures in his earlier work, to explorations of specific details from the same works. By zooming-in on areas of special interest, he explores interior worlds. He reveals their hidden meanings and images through his daydreaming, archaic visions created on canvas or paper, using mixed media that includes charcoal and sand. His work has received awards and commendations in Slovenia, Argentina and Uruguay, and his work has been exhibited both at home and internationally. His work is permanently represented in museums in Washington, Dresden (Germany) and Buenos Aires (Argentina), and is held in private collections in Germany, Argentina, Denmark, Spain and USA.

Mendizabal, Martin (Uruguay)

Minnhaar, Gretchen (Argentina) : Gretchen Minnhaar, Argentina Gretchen Minnhaar (Argentina) paints with a figurative style incorporating her architectural expertise, interest in perspective and human interaction. She portrays tables, and people interacting around them, evolved from the grouping at the Last Supper, by DaVinci. Privileged, empowered people sit around the large tables, deliberating the fate of humanity. Argentina’s former military ruler, and other Latin American despots also inspired these works. In these oil paintings perspective emphasizes the different points of view: are these people viewed frontally, from above, close or maybe far? Occasionally, the table is empty, in anticipation of the occupants, with the size and shape of the room alluding to the event to come. Tilted planes, exaggerated vanishing points, and dark corners coexisting with light create the dreamlike environment.

Minnhaar, Gretchen (Argentina)

Nierman, Leonardo (Mexico) : Leonardo Nierman, Mexico The earliest training of this renowned artist was in physical and mathematical sciences. The result of his early formal training is evident in his masterful knowledge of color, form and motion. He is self- taught in the graphic arts, and his most recent works are featured in the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago as well as the Mexican Art Gallery in Chicago. His lifetime works belong to a myriad of impressive collections around the world. He is a lifetime member of the prestigious Real Society of Arts in London, and has been awarded the Palm D’Or of Monaco

Nierman, Leonardo (Mexico)

Opazo, Rodolfo (Chile) : Rodolfo Opazo, Chile Opazo was born in 1935. Opazo studied at the School of Fine Art at the University of Chile and the Graphic Art Center in New York. He was awarded the National Prize for Fine Art in 2001 by the Chilean government. His work is characterized by a dream-like figuration, which combines zones of flat color with volumetric forms. He gave his work a sculptural treatment in his project for Cuerpos Pintados. As with each of his paintings, the figure is stretched and forms are lengthened, losing their customary perspective. The oblique angles from which the photographs of the works are taken recreates Opazo’s singular world.

Opazo, Rodolfo (Chile)

Ortiz, Gladys (Colombia) :

Ortiz, Gladys (Colombia)

Palma, Carlos (Peru) : Carlos Palma, Peru “Carlos Palma gives us a purified and rigorous art that goes far beyond the visual field because it proposes a type of metaphysics where life and death, with their impeccable dialectics, shake us and oblige us to seek other spaces of comprehension. Andean to the core, as are the poems of Cesar Vallejo, his painting gives us the miracle of the Golden mean, of a balance, static but charged with interior latent forces, a gravitating force-a kind of spasm hust hushed by the delicacy of music or the coldness of geometry.” Raul Perez Torres Ecuador Quito Junio 1999

Palma, Carlos (Peru)

Palma, Hugo (Nicaragua) :

Palma, Hugo (Nicaragua)

Paz, Juan Pedro (Uruguay) : Juan Pedro Paz, Uruguay Born in Salto, Uruguay, in 1971, Juan Pedro Paz is a graduate of the National University of Uruguay. Paz spent ten years perfecting his skill in oil painting under two masters, Clever Lara and Álvaro Amengual, before settling on his current style in which he wets the canvas and lets the water and tints inform the work’s final image. He is always interested in the human head and other, almost human forms that appear to transform into animals in his works that are shrouded in a dark, melancholy veil. His work has received a number of awards and commendations in Uruguay and Argentina. He has exhibited extensively in Uruguay and internationally, and his works are in permanent and private collections in Germany, Argentina, USA and Uruguay

Paz, Juan Pedro (Uruguay)

Pedrola, Jordi (Spain) : Jordi Pedrola, Spain Each painting is somehow independent from the laws of nature. This is because the rules guiding the formation of Jordi Pedrola’s images result in a delicate balance among plastic elements which are in contrast -vibrant complementary colors, an expressive articulation of fullness and emptiness, and a particulary strong distinction between light and dark

Pedrola, Jordi (Spain)

Portela, Maribel (Mexico) : Maribel Portela, Mexico "Maribel Portela was born in 1960 in Mexico City, Mexico. This innovative artist’s works and concepts have catapulted her into a crucial role, not only in Latin America, but also on an international level. Portela creates images about humanity defining spiritual beliefs and gathering information to survive in the journey of life - all that is primitive and spontaneous, a life full of myths, fears, anxieties, dreams and desires. Her work has gained special attention in venues such as the Contemporary Art Museum, San Juan, Puerto Rico, the Fine Arts National Center, Cairo, Egypt, and the José Luis Cuevas Museum, Mexico City, Mexico."

Portela, Maribel (Mexico)

Quijano, Alejandro (Mexico) : Alejandro Quijano, Mexico Alejandro Quijano was born in August 1957, in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. He studied architectural construction techniques at the Instituto Politecnica Nacional and at the Universidad Nacional Autonomo de Mexico. In 1947 he began his studies in plastic arts and by 1983 he had built his own workshop where he has continued his career delving into all possible plastic art expressions: painting, engraving, stained glass, and sculpting in its different mediums, etc. He has participated in over a hundred shows including cultural centers, both public and private galleries.

Quijano, Alejandro (Mexico)

Rademeyer, Sonya (South Africa) : Sonya Rademeyer, South Africa The two dominant elements in these works are the ‘negative imprints’ of the human hair used as well as the medium that was used to do the paintings, which was Mercurochrome. I found it important to employ these components as they refer directly to war situations, in this instance to the senseless loss of human life in Iraq. Images of war artillery are visible and have been superimposed over strands and sections of human hair. These are clearly visible and associate strongly with X-ray images where transparency becomes a metaphor for the fragility of human life as echoed by the choice of paper (tracing paper). Mercurochrome has become the paint medium and refers to pain and injury. Yet Mercurochrome also has to do with healing and cleansing and the hope of restoration and returning to a sound state. Interestingly enough, a chemical reaction occurred with the mercurochrome and tracing paper, and in areas where no strands of human hair were in contact, these areas turned into a beautiful peacock green colour – an element of hope within what would appear to be impossible.