For the fifth consecutive year, ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries participated in this nation’s leading Latin American art exposition, arteaméricas.This was the first time the event was held in Miami Beach Convention Center, site of Art Basel. The fair featured seventy leading galleries exhibiting more than 300 artists.

Miller has been exhibiting Latin American works since shortly after opening her gallery in 1974. For some years, hers was the only gallery in the Miami region to feature Latin American paintings and sculpture. “I have always believed that Latin American art is some of the most exciting and under-priced on the market,” said Miller.

For arteaméricas, Miller selected a mix of historic and mid-career artists. The former included two important paintings by the Cuban master Wifredo Lam, a 1959 oil and a 1957 oil on paper bonded to canvas. Among the other works were three by the Mexican master Francisco Toledo, a gouache-and-ink dated 1965, and a watercolor thought to be from the same period, and a black-and-white drawing dated 1978.

Rounding out the older works was a spectacular 1978 painting by the master artist of El Salvador, Benjamin Cañas. Nearly four feet square, the oil-on-panel includes the exquisitely drawn figures and velvety backgrounds that have earned him such an enthusiastic following.

Mid-career artists included three who recently won major awards. Irene Pressner, an emerging artist from Venezuela whose encaustic works are done with ink applied with a tattoo needle, topped a field of 132 leading Latin American artists to win the $50,000 first prize and inclusion in the permanent collection of the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, California.

Pressner’s winning work was one of her “Rococomics” series, a 28-inch-square encaustic work similar to those presently being exhibited in the gallery. The series incorporates well-known cartoon characters, like Dennis the Menace and Woody Woodpecker, into elegant floral patterns so perfectly that they are not apparent at first glance. Closer scrutiny causes the shock of recognizing well-known comic characters in their incongruous settings.

The apocalyptic visions of Sergio Garval of Mexico won the first prize of $50,000 at the Rafael Cauduro First Biennial of Drawings Competition of the Americas held in Tijuana, Mexico. Garval won the award for a charcoal-on-panel drawing from the same series exhibited at arteméricas.

The Joan Mitchell Foundation recently notified sculptor Melquiades Rosario Sastre of Puerto Rico that he was one of 25 artists to be awarded $25,000 grants “to acknowledge painters and sculptors creating works of exceptional quality.” Melquiades, who uses only his first name, was represented at the fair by one of his complex wood sculptures.

Centering the booth was an installation by Soledad Salamé of Chile, whose six-page resumé includes four solo museum exhibitions in her native country and the U.S.  Its nine 16-by-20-inch solarized photos etched into aluminum plates spread over more than five by four feet, their silver and gray images shimmering like three-dimensional puddles of liqud mercury.

Some of the booth’s most popular features, particularly with younger fairgoers, were the whimsical small-scale egg tempera and gold foil paintings by Marianela de la Hoz.  As suggested by the Mexican artist, a magnifying glass was provided so viewers could read  such titles as “My voice rasps, I feel like a man” for a diminuitive portrait of a man with the head of a fully antlered stag.

Hugo Crosthwaite‘s pencil-and-charcoal drawings, particularly the larger work, which stretches nearly six feet tall by five feet wide, drew the usual gallery of onlookers. A virtuoso who always draws his hometown of Tijuana and its working-class residents, Crosthwaite has the extraordinary ability to bring his subjects to life in black and white.

At any given time during arteaméricas, more people probably stood before the sensual nudes of Marcelo Zampetti than at any other spot. The Argentine artist captures the sensuality of his female subjects with an inner light that compels viewers to examine them closely. The most common question heard in the booth was whether the lifelike oils on canvas were photographs.

The gallery’s very first sales during the art expo were two 14-inch house sculptures of collage over panel with hand-cast glass. Linda Behar, a Venezuelan artist, selects different themes for her works: one was based on the African region where women paint their homes with such hopeful wishes as “Peace,” “Prosperity,” “Health,” and “Rain.”

Superb talents and finely honed techniques unite the widely varied personal statements featured in “Panorama Latinoamericano,” the new exhibition of paintings and sculpture at ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries.

Two paintings by the Mexican master Francisco Toledo are in the exhibition, along with works by thirteen mid-career artists from Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela.

Generally viewed as Mexico’s greatest living artist, Toledo’s two works are watercolors, one dated 1965 and the other probably from the same period. The 1965 work depicts several of his characteristic figures with the heads of birds in a room; the latter includes his cubistic, segmented ox, birds, cat and standing figure.

“The others in the exhibition are solid mid-career artists with strong records of exhibitions, who stand on the brink of becoming well-known,” said gallery owner Virginia Miller.

“Take Ricardo Mazal, for example–he’s had one-person exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Mexico City; at MARCO, the Contemporary Art Museum in Monterrey, and at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Scottsdale, Arizona. And Maria Gamundi has created two dozen site-specific works, mostly outdoor bronze sculpture.”

Nine of the mid-career artists focus on the human figure, ranging from the magic realism of Alfredo Arcia‘s theatrical scenes to the sensual women in paintings by Marco Tulio and Marcello Zampetti. Lifelike women in languid poses also are the subject of bronze sculpture by Maria Gamundi.

Humberto Castro‘s new series of ethereal paintings and drawings frequently use people or birds in flight to represent the concept of freedom, a common theme for this Cuban-born artist. Witty, surreal figures in improbable situations are the subjects of the miniature paintings of Marianela de la Hoz.

 Mateo Argüelles Pitt‘s painted panel juxtaposes figures with plants in a mosaic-like pattern. Moises Barrios paints reflections of Banana Republic showroom windows, a reference to his Central American homeland, Guatemala.

Also in the exhibition are large abstract works by two painters, Michelle Concepción and Ricardo Mazal; and an abstract sculpture by Melquiades, a leading Puerto Rican artist who prefers to use only one name. Another sculpture is by Linda Behar, whose imaginative houses incorporate hand-cast glass elements.

Rounding out the exhibition are classical still lifes of tropical fruit by Edgar Soberón.

ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries’ Artists Receive Major Awards, Recognition

Six artists represented by Art/Space Virginia Miller Galleries recently received major recognition, including first prizes in international competitions and representation in museum exhibitions.

Irene Pressner, an emerging artist from Venezuela whose encaustic works done with ink applied with a tattoo needle were included in the gallery’s last exhibition, topped a field of 132 top Latin American artists last month to win the $50,000 first prize and inclusion in the permanent collection of the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, California.

Pressner’s winning work was one of her “Rococomics” series, a 28-inch-square encaustic work similar to those presently being exhibited in our annex gallery. The series incorporates well-known cartoon characters, like Dennis the Menace and Woody Woodpecker, into elegant floral patterns so perfectly that they are not apparent at first glance. Closer scrutiny causes the shock of recognizing well-known comic characters in their incongruous settings.

Sergio Garval of Mexico, whose apocalyptic visions are the subject of paintings on the gallery web site, was awarded the first prize of $50,000 at the Rafael Cauduro First Biennial of Drawings Competition of the Americas held in Tijuana, Mexico, in September.

Hugo Crosthwaite, whose first major U.S. one-person exhibition was held at the gallery in 2005, is exhibiting a 16-foot graphite-and-charcoal drawing in the Santa Monica Museum of Art exhibition, “Extraño Nuevo Mundo/Strange New World: Art and Design from Tijuana.”

The Santa Monica exhibit is a smaller version of the original exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. Another 2006 museum exhibition, “Paper Traces: Latin American Prints and Drawings from the Collection of the San Diego Museum of Art,” included Crosthwaite’s eight-foot drawing, “Bartolome,” acquired from the gallery’s exhibition.

Josephine Haden‘s work was featured in “New American Paintings,” juried by Alex Baker, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Earlier last year, five of her paintings on wood were featured in the new Russian Esquire magazine.

Soledad Salamé, whose photographs and paintings were introduced by the gallery at the Bridge Art Fair during Art Basel, presently is having a one-person exhibition at the Museo Histórico y Arqueologico in La Serena, Chile, her native country. The exhibition, which originated at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago, will travel in March to the Pinacoteca at the University of Concepción.

The Joan Mitchell Foundation recently notified sculptor Melquiades Rosario Sastre of Puerto Rico that he was one of 25 artists to be awarded $25,000 grants “to acknowledge painters and sculptors creating works of exceptional quality.” Melquiades, who uses only his first name, was represented with three works in the gallery’s last exhibition.

The gallery is the fortunate recipient of two new architectural drawings on wooden panels by Hugo Crosthwaite, the amazing artist from Mexico whose 8-by-36-foot drawing was featured here in his premiere major U.S. exhibition last year. The 2-by-4-foot drawings–one horizontal, the other vertical–feature typical buildings from the typical neighborhoods of Tijuana, the artist’s home town. Like all of Crosthwaite’s work, these are executed in pencil and charcoal, which captures the neighborhood’s gritty ambiance perfectly. Drawing is a slow process, and many of Crosthwaite’s work are earmarked for museum collections. Available works of this size have been rare.

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