Gene Flores Entre más se empina uno, más le ven las nalgas (The more you bend over, the more you show your ass), 1995-96
Etching and drypoint on paper
Purchase with Funds Provided by the Lipscomb Purchase Endowment
Gene Flores Quien bien te quiere te hará llorar (Those who love you most will make you cry)1995-96
Etching, aquatint, and drypoint on paper
Purchase with Funds Provided by the Lipscomb Purchase Endowment
Born and raised in El Paso, printmaker Gene Flores first studied at UTEP and then completed his MA and MFA with honors in printmaking at the University of Iowa. After working for several years as art instructor at his Texas and Iowa alma maters, Flores moved to Portland, Oregon, where since 2005 he has continued his own art making and also taught drawing and printmaking at Portland Community College and Clackamas Community College. Gene Flores: Proverbios and Dichos Chicanos features works from the EPMA collection belonging to the artist’s print series Chicano Proverbios and Dichos. In the series Flores takes traditional Chicano proverbs or sayings and uses his imagination to create whimsical and surreal visualizations of the phrases. Sentiments range from playful (Entre más se empina uno, más le ven las nalgas—The more one climbs, the more one’s ass is shown) to serious and philosophical (Quien bien te quiere te hara llorar—Those who love you most will make you cry). Flores’s imaginative imagery ranges from human and animal figures to fantastical beings melding humanoid faces with larvae and insect forms. Consistent throughout the series, however, is this artist’s mastery of various printmaking techniques such as aquatint, etching, and drypoint, which he uses to create a range of tones, textures, black-white contrasts, lines, and other marks from his stylus.
Margarita Cabrera August 28 – August 4, 2013
Patricia and Jonathan Rogers Grand Lobby
Margarita Cabrera (American, 1973 - ) Arbol de la Vida: John Deere Model 790, 2007
Ceramic, slip paint and steel hardware
Courtesy of the artist
Margarita Cabrera
For the next two years, from August 2011 until August 2013, the El Paso Museum of Art will feature eleven artworks from the last ten years by the Monterrey, Mexico born artist Margarita Cabrera. Cabrera first became known for her soft-sculptures of commercial products such as coffeemakers and blenders manufactured at US-owned maquiladoras in Mexico to serve as reminders of the labor involved. In time Cabrera’s concern for the role of laborers who build American products outside the United States outgrew her interest in the objects themselves, and she began to organize projects that involved the work of artisans from immigrant communities. Cabrera’s Arbol de la Vida John Deere Model 790 is the result of a project involving the creation of a life-size replica of a John Deere tractor in clay, the "tree of life" for many workers in the agricultural community. Cabrera`s cross-cultural perspective allows her artistic practice to involve the political, social and emotional aspects of two distinct, yet closely connected cultures. Cabrera lives and works in El Paso.
Margarita Cabrera – Biography
Margarita Cabrera was born in 1973 in Monterrey, Mexico. She lived in Mexico City for ten years and then immigrated to the U.S. with her family. She received an MFA from Hunter College in New York, NY. Cabrera currently lives and works in El Paso, TX. Her most recent exhibitions include a solo show entitled Pulso y Martillo at UC Riverside Sweeney Art Gallery, Riverside, CA, during which she debuted two performance works. Her work was also included in New Image Sculpture at the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX and the Trans/Action at Guadalupe Cultural Art Center, San Antonio, TX. Her work has been included in Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, TX; El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY; Sun Valley Center for the Arts, Ketchum, ID and San Jose Museum of Art, CA. In 2008 she was a resident artist at ArtPace, San Antonio, TX. Cabrera is the recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant and was a finalist for the Texas Prize in 2007. Cabrera is represented by Walter Maciel Gallery in Los Angeles, CA.
Contemporary Texas Prints
March 31 – September 15, 2013
Gateway Gallery
David Bates
Full Moon, 1992
Mixed media & woodcut, 45 1/4 x 38 1/4”
Purchase with funds of anonymous donors
2005.13
Contemporary printmaking in Texas is a fascinating field with just about as many practitioners and many variations as one can imagine. The abundance of Texas printmakers and the vibrancy of this medium stand out on a national scale comparable with the state’s size. This popularity and reputation has everything to do with the changing role of the print in contemporary art and culture. This exhibition demonstrates how the artists and collecting institutions themselves are defying traditional hierarchies that previously defined printmaking as a lesser art media.
For example the El Paso Museum of Art has over the years paid close attention to the art of printmaking and in addition to building a strong collection of prints by Texas artists from the Depression era through the Second World War has also gathered numerous prints by contemporary Texan artists. With this exhibition the El Paso Museum of Art celebrates this note-worthy collection.
The woodcuts, etchings, aquatints, lithographs, linocuts, serigraphs, and mono-prints included here should be seen as a sampling of the printmaking abundance that can be found throughout the Lone Star state. Artists such as David Bates, Luis Jimenez, Donald Judd and James Surls are only four of the many Texas artists for whom printmaking has become an essential part of their artistic practice.
Our Lady of Sorrows
April 28 – November 3, 2013
Dorrance and Olga Roderick Gallery: Retablo Niche
Anonymous
Our Lady of Sorrows, 18th C,
oil on copper, 13 ¼ x 11”
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Richard G. Miller
1977.1.11
The latest in the series of themed exhibitions from the Museum’s growing collection of retablos is Nuestra Senora Dolorosa/ Our Lady of Sorrows. Established in the late 14th century the theme of Our Lady of Sorrows is meant to show homage to the suffering of Christ’s mother over the death of her son. Deliberately formulated to also inspire cultic devotion these retablos typically symbolize Mary’s sorrows by depicting a sword piercing her breast or in a grieving pose with hands clasped. Also included are retablos which depict Our Lady of Sorrows with symbols of Christ’s Passion to further emphasize his suffering. These nineteen works of art from the 18th and 19th were produced by trained and self-taught anonymous, Mexican artists whose spiritual devotion to this subject motivated their artistic abilities.
