Jeronimo Melo

Javier Manrique

Antonio Tovar

Select any artist above to view their works

Modern Mexican Art
Mexico's modern art was highly influenced by the Mexican revolution and it's infamous mural movement. In support of the revolution, the mural movement was uniquely different from European modernism, in vogue at the same time throughout the west and parts of South America. The muralists believed in "art that serves the people" as opposed to modernism's mantra of "art for art's sake."

As Mexico became an industrialized nation mid 20th century, these two powerful yet opposing art philosophies began to collide. As a result, this brought about the Ruptura (rupture) movement in the 1960's. Ruptura acknowledged European modernism and opened the gates for Mexican artists to experiment with abstract and non-representational forms of expressions. The artists featured in this exhibition have all been influenced by the Ruptura movement, and continue to evolve from its basic principles.

New Expressions
This exhibition brings into view recent works by three contemporary Mexican artists: Javier Manrique, Jeronimo Melo and Antonio Tovar, all working with abstract and non-representational principles. Each artist develops his own unique mode of expression through experimentations with color, form and symbolism.

Manrique employs a limited palette and readily identifiable images such as chairs, boats or the human profile. The works of Melo are flooded with grays, taupes and off whites, which are layered to reveal encoded words, symbols and numbers. Tovar's strong use of color is used to convey pure, often elated emotions, whereby the subject matter becomes absorbed by color, volume and space. While aesthetically these artist's works are quite different, they are united in their desire to probe deeper into everyday human icons and reveal the inner core of life.

Exhibition sponsored by and exhibited at Cadence Design Systems, Inc.