by Margaret Failoni

Without a doubt, Ángel Ricardo R. Ríos is one of my favorite artists! This artist creates luscious abstracts with a cacophony of flowers and barely masqueraded phallic symbols.

Originally from Cuba, Ángel first arrived in Mexico City where he pursued a successful career in modern, romantic landscapes before moving to Cuernavaca. The change of landscapes created an epiphany from which there was no turning back. Flowers, flowers everywhere.

The floral vegetation was inebriating. Yearly trips to Cuba, where he still keeps a home and studio, further enrich his palette. The colors are those of blooms at their prime and just starting to fade; the brush strokes are rich and moving. The paintings are abstract and yet, the works of a mad gardener.

Now greatly collected in the States, especially on the West Coast, we are finally able to bring new work to San Miguel de Allende, for the joy of our collectors.

Opening during the Day of The Dead festivities, Ian Johnson enchants the viewer with a series of glorious colorful geometric creations, each a master study on color and form.

Several similar individual pieces can be rearranged to form a completely different oeuvre, and therein lies the magic.

Johnson is that unusual master creator who can work in abstract form to create a quasi figurative work as is the case of the large cityscape installation seen in the far end of the hall.

In this exhibition,the artist presents us with a series of almost playful, puzzle like squares in his usual use of glorious color, and a long, sophisticated play of color and form which he can switch around at whim. The surfaces of the works are smooth and semi matt, exquisitely detailed in their execution. Form and color are the stars of the show. The Fauvists would have loved him.

His very sophisticated work so well received in London has been shown in a Mexico City exhibition space during the last two MACO Art Fairs and acquired by Chilango art collectors.

Originally from England, Ian Johnson has made San Miguel his home. My visit to his studio was an electrifying and joyful experience.

Santiago Corral's work invites us to a sensory experience beyond mere visual contemplation. In Biosferas, the artist captures the very essence of wild nature, not only to be admired, but to be felt. Through his unique technique and approach, Corral seeks to awaken in the viewer a perception of the natural environment in its most profound form: the smell of rain-wet leaves, the texture of a thick, sun-kissed leaf, the aroma of moist, light earth. The endless layers of foliage filter the dim light that does not reach the earth, evoking the serene warmth of the last hours of the day.

In this series, the artist not only presents landscapes, but also gives them a sense of temporality and aging. Using a special patina, which gives the pieces a worn and aged finish, Corral seeks to endow nature with history and past. The images in Biosferas refer to photographs published in old newspapers, yellowed by the passage of time, perpetuating a dialogue between eternal nature and eroding time.

Presented as windows to the immutable, these works invite us to look back into the past and momentarily escape contemporary reality. Biosferas is a reminder of the evocative power of art, of how an image can endure and connect us with time and memory, offering a sensory refuge in the midst of everyday chaos.

In the series Entia et Estructura, Santiago Corral explores the dynamics of survival that govern our lives within the urban structures we inhabit. Through his works, the artist presents a reflection on the coexistence between human beings and the animal world in an environment where the city, as a living entity, struggles between decay, chaos, reinvention and constant transformation.

Large advertisements, newspaper clippings and headlines form a central part of this series, depicting a world that often promises a “romantic and idyllic” life that contrasts with everyday reality. In this urban landscape, domestic animals appear as figures alien to human chaos, adapting to urban structures and rhythms, indifferent to the disorder in which we participate.

Cities, with their inherent contradictions, are presented as metaphors for chaos, but also as centers of opportunity. Built and destroyed by the hand of man, these cities are at the same time spaces of knowledge, exchange and growth, where the expansion of ideas and the future come to life.

Within this series, the work Family Portrait stands out as a symbol of migration and arrival, reflecting the journey towards the unexpected, the search for a place in civilization and personal rebirth. In an environment in perpetual transformation, Entia et Estructura invites us to rethink our relationship with the space we inhabit, with its promises of reinvention and its realities of disorder.

The Galería Intersección is proud to once again bring to the San Miguel de Allende public, the exquisitely painted works by the master painter Sergio Garval.

Born in Guadalajara where he still lives and works, Garval is considered one of the great contemporary artists producing master works in Mexico today.

The artist's painting technique is extraordinary. Similar to a well known British master, Garval mixes many colors to create the color of flesh. His brush strokes are never wavering. He is a master in depicting the human body and is equally proficient in drawing, watercolors, printmaking and sculpture. This exhibition promises to have a small variety of these different techniques.

In various exhibitions Garval presents the viewer with subtle criticisms of today’s world, from consumerism to climate change, to the commercialization of religion.

His work has been exhibited in most of the major museums throughout the Mexican Republic. Large sculptures can be seen in public spaces especially in Guadalajara.

One of his most important collectors is building a museum in Guadalajara which will feature the Garval masterpieces in his collection. The Covid pandemic has delayed the construction which is still in the works. An important catalog of this important collection is available in the gallery.

We invite our friends and the San Miguel public to come meet the artists during the opening.

Galería Intersección, Fabrica la Aurora, 18-A
415-120-0944, interseccionartsma@gmail.com
www.interseccionart.com

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