Gabriel Navar

Antonio Tovar

Javier Manrique

Select any artist above to view their works

Nobel prize winning author Octavio Paz wrote one of the most poignant works of literature on Mexican culture in The Labyrinth of Solitude.  Written in the 1950's, the book is an internationally recognized classic and a staple in classrooms throughout Mexico.   Transcending time, it is remarkable how relevant the text is still today.   While there are divergent viewpoints to Paz's observations, the important point is that he helped establish a lucid and multi-layered dialog on Mexican identity.  This art exhibit serves as a visual metaphor for Paz's thinking, with the paintings acting as touchstones towards Mexican history, culture and identity.

Octavio Paz often took a somber, introspective gaze at Mexican identity. Gabriel Navar's paintings, depicting archetypal models, show people facing the world, often looking inward as well as outwards.

 

 

Antonio Tovar's artworks are about the nuances lying within sensations. A seeming contradiction, they mirror Paz's sophisticated thinking, which often layers contradictions upon one another.   It is ultimately up to the viewer/reader to resolve this information.

 

 

If Paz often left us with an unresolved picture, he at least exposed us to what is missing; for it is often the missing that is difficult to comprehend.  Javier Manrique's paintings expose us to this exile, with austere imagery that transcend their simplicity and suggest an interior solitude.

Exhibition sponsored by Thompson Hospitality & Compass Group

Octavio Paz biography

Winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature, and past recipient of the Jerusalem Prize, the Frankfurt Peace Prize, and the Neustadt Prize, Octavio Paz is the author of more than twenty-five books of poetry and prose.  In addition to being a poet, essayist, playwright, social philosopher, and critic, he has also served