Let's talk Latin America
Let's talk Latin America
Bristolatino editor, Rebecca Wilson, visited the Mexican gallery in July. Here´s a taste of what´s to see.
In Mérida – a city of plazas, horse and carts, mezcalerías and pulquerías – lies a gem. Nahualli, Casa de los Artistas is in fact the family home of artists Abel Vázquez and Melva Medina, in which they display their artwork. Symbols of seeds and fertility, the cactus, iguanas, cats and fruit are incorporated into bronze sculptures with smooth curves and jagged, warrior’s faces.
Bright canvases display faces, serpents and shells textured with sand. An etching mixes vibrant greens with bronzed browns. Thought, identity, maternity and nature are common themes lacing the different mediums displayed as you walk across tiled floors and through the colonial courtyard, following the smells of home cooking and the comforting patter of dogs wandering about their home, napping in corridors.
Photographs and a video show the body painting event, in which dancers were painted hair to toe. Directed by Abel, they move embodying the paintings projected behind them, creating unique shadows: a peacock opening its feathers, angular bodies and intriguing eyes. The illusion is amplified as one dancer wears a coloured mask angled on the top of her head.
In Abel’s soft monochrome drawings, the veins extending from a beating heart become the living hairs of a beautiful woman. Iguana feet and strong muscled legs support a fierce female face, with closed eyes and a serious mouth.
Friendly, free, folkloric and modern, the gallery constantly changes its display of original and distinctive pieces.
Calle 60 # 405 x 43 y 45 Santa Ana, Centro
Mérida, Yucatan, México