'Compassion'

A million meanings: the art of Mexican painter Raul Lopez Garcia

For artist Raúl López García, it is the language of his subconscious that manifests itself in his paintings. “About two years ago, I realized that I wasn’t inventing anything, but that I was simply transporting my own experiences to a canvas,” says Raúl, who uses just his first name in connection with his artistic endeavors. […]

Continue Reading
Magical Nude by Enrique Flores

Enrique Flores: Philanthropic Oaxaca artist has the golden touch

Enrique Flores is one of the most prolific Mexican artists of his generation. Of course having been mentored by the late great master of contemporary Mexican art, Rodolfo Morales, hasn’t hurt; nor has the fact that two of Oaxaca’s most prominent art galleries, Indigo and Arte de Oaxaca, were his patrons for many years. But […]

Continue Reading
Original art by Fiona Dunnett who makes her home in Oaxaca. © Fiona Dunnett, Alvin Starkman, 2009

Fiona Dunnett: images of self and death in Oaxaca

Comic strips, a young Canadian’s self portraits, and photographs of violent deaths in a Mexican daily newspaper, make strange bedfellows. But they constitute a major part of the driving force for the creative energies of artist Fiona Dunnett, a resident of Oaxaca, Mexico. Ottawa-born Dunnett has been living in Oaxaca since 2005. As in the […]

Continue Reading
A large replica of Posada's most acclaimed Catrina representation stands at the main entrance to the city of Aguascalientes. She smiles a welcome to residents and visitors alike. © Diodora Bucur, 2009

Mexico’s Daumier: Jose Guadalupe Posada (1852 – 1913)

José Guadalupe Posada is in the great tradition of cartoonists who double as political and social commentators. That tradition includes Honoré Daumier, whose merciless portraits of bourgeois society caused him to be acclaimed as the greatest social satirist of his day, Aubrey Beardsley, who illustrated Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, and such living political cartoonists as Herbert […]

Continue Reading
the pineapple pottery of Hilario Alejos Madrigal

A family tradition in Michoacan: the pineapple pottery of Hilario Alejos Madrigal

Where others see a mass of shapeless clay, Hilario Alejos Madrigal envisions exquisite forms that are just waiting to be coaxed out. And it is this creativity that has played a key role in the success of this award-winning potter. “It is necessary and very important to have an imagination,” Alejos explains. “A lot of […]

Continue Reading
La Vida y La Muerte (Life and Death), a painting by Mexican artist Lorena Rodriguez © Erin Cassin, 2007

Mexican painter Lorena Rodriguez: from the personal to the universal

Lorena Rodríguez is shattering stereotypes about Mexican women one brushstroke at a time. “When I first started exhibiting outside of Mexico, I realized that a lot of people have this image of a Latin American woman as subdued, ignorant and in the shadow of men,” says the 34-year-old artist from Monterrey, Nuevo León. “They were […]

Continue Reading
Cover of Mexico My Home. Primitive Art and Modern Poetry With 50 easy to learn Spanish words and phrases. For all children from 8 to 80 (1972); painting by Eunice and Peter Huf. Artwork by Eunice and Peter Huf  

The Lake Chapala artistic and literary scene in the 1960s and early 1970s

The area’s reputation was considerably enhanced in the 1930s, ’40s and’ 50s by a long string of visiting writers and artists, many of whom settled permanently in the string of villages along the northern shore of the lake. This brief alphabetical listing of some of the stalwarts of the Lake Chapala art and literary scene […]

Continue Reading
Painting of a boat on the shore of Lake Chapala by Mexican artist Efren Gonzalez. © Rob Mohr, 2010

Mexican artist Efren Gonzalez revives an ancient art form with terracotta murals

Part of the wonder and adventure of experiencing life in Ajijic, Mexico is the incredible diversity of color in the natural world — pungent reds, a range of blues, pale purples, brilliant yellows — and of form: broad leaves, lace-like foliage, sharp narrow leaves of bamboo, and fields of cultivated raspberries, set between surrounding mountains […]

Continue Reading