SPEC

Start: 2009 September 11th 1pm

End: 2009 Septemer 18th, 5pm

Location: Fox Art Gallery (ground floor of Claudia Cohen Hall)

Hours: Mon-Fri 9am – 5pm

Festival Latino is an annual, week-long celebration of the richness of Latino culture. Since its beginnings in 1982, Festival has welcomed world-renowned artists, authors, and musicians to enrich the Penn community through performances, lectures, and exhibitions. Past Festival guests have included Julia Alvarez, Larry Harow, and Margo Gomez.

This year, the Festival presents the important works from a private collection of well-known Central American artists Ana María de Martinez and her brother San Avilés (Ernesto Avilés) in the Fox Art Gallery.

Source: http://mariahidalgo.com

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Ana María de Martinez was born on May 28, 1937 in Santa Ana, a cosmopolitan city in the western region of El Salvador in Central America. She is the younger sister of the remarkable Salvadorian painter San Avilés (1932-1991). She is one of the most important working artists in El Salvador.

Ana María’s work resides in highly prestigious museums and private collections, such as the Duchess of Alba collection in Spain, the private collection of former U.S. president Ronald Reagan, and the permanent collection of contemporary painters in the Museo Marte, the National Gallery of El Salvador. In 2007, Ana María’s work was featured in the Latin Masters exhibition at the Nassau County Museum of Art in New York, alongside other world renowned artists such as Frida Kahlo, Wilfredo Lam and Fernando Botero. Her work has been successfully auctioned at prestigious galleries and auction houses worldwide, such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s New York.

Ana María began her career in San Salvador, El Salvador in 1967, where she participated in a clay modeling course sponsored by the French embassy. She expanded her medium to include casts and polychrome molds using many techniques including encaustics, which she would later use in paintings and in combination with other contemporary techniques and materials. For example, the paintings on display are acrylic painted on linen canvas, producing a super-realistic effect. “I love to paint oranges because it is a special fruit that provides a sentiment of sensuality, when it is explored with the infinite possibilities of texture and color,” says de Martinez of her work.

Her work is often compared to the Dutch Masters of the 17th century for her mastery of light and the art of claroscuro, an Italian term that describes the technique of contrasting light and shade in order to enhance shape, form, texture and transparency. “The shine of the light is the happiness; the black is not a negative feeling—that does not exist,” says de Martinez. “The darkness is the pain, the suffering that flourishes through the light. If there is no darkness, we do not appreciate happiness. We have to go through facets in life…through the obscure path. The darkness takes something of light that gives tranquility.”

Reference:
http://mariahidalgo.com