RGN at CONTRAPUNTO

CONTRAPUNTO:

Latin-x Fine Artists stun at Gallery 72

Counterpoint, when used as a tool in conversation, is the practice of bringing clarity to an idea or statement by offering contrasting views; using the distinctions between them to highlight the essential importance of the original assertion.  Contrapunto, aside from being Spanish for counterpoint, is also the name of a fine arts collective operating here in the Metro Atlanta area.  Its members are Latin-x, hailing from several countries throughout Latin America.  As opposed to Latina or Latino, Latin-x eschews emphasis on gender, orientation or ethnicity while still recognizing an individual’s identity among a broadly diverse cultural and geographic palette stretching from the 32^nd parallel all the way to Antarctica. 

Offered by Contrapunto founder and GeorgiaNutts Guild friend Carlos Solis, Contrapunto’s most recent exhibit is what brought DAP Tales and I (alFalaq) out into the evening chill on Thursday, December 5^th to Gallery 72 on Marietta Street in downtown Atlanta.  Gallery 72 is the youngest in the lineage of public exhibition spaces curated by the Mayor of Atlanta’s Office of Cultural Affairs.  It is a warm space, inviting and intimate and best of all, free to the public.

Inside the gallery space, the walls were adorned with canvases of varying sizes, visual expressions ranging from the surreal to the abstract, colors from the bold to the demure, emotions from the urgent to the serene, each artist’s statement patiently awaiting the eyes of the beholders. 

A couple of things happened here that have never happened to me before at any art exhibit:  Firstly, I had never attended an exhibit where I had the chance to speak directly with the artist.  This Thursday night, we met five and I had the chance to speak in depth with three, so this was uniquely exciting.  We fell into conversation with Carlos upon our arrival. 

A genteel and immediately approachable man, his passion is evident and persuasive, despite his soft-spoken demeanor.  Speaking, we loitered a while by some of his surrealistic canvases where his stylistic parlance, so reminiscent of Dali, belies the powerfully probing commitment of his art to the discovery of truth, often born in his dreams.  As example:  In one painting, a muzzled camel lopes through the desert beneath a glowering pinkish sky.  The human spirit, represented by doves, struggles uselessly in a cage, tethered to a cell phone.  

In the lower corner, an angel arrests the arm of a monkey, belaying him from tossing his excrement toward the haloed silhouette of the Madonna and child.  

“It is the noise,” he is encouraging us to see, “of the modern world, distracting us from the voices of our inner selves, the potency of memory and self-awareness.”  While discussing the exhibit in the context of the collective itself and why it was founded, he sweeps his hand broadly, including the entire exhibition space within the gesture.  

“Look around,” he says.  The walls are replete with images; some realistic and personal, some geometric and playful, some soft, some severe, all masterfully rendered and real.  

He continues, “You see the expressions.  You don’t see ‘Peru’”, indicating works by Graciela Nunez Bedoya, 

“Or ‘Mexico’”, pointing to canvases by Jorge Arcos, 

“Or ‘Venezuela’”, his own work.  “There is so much diversity throughout the Latin-American experience”, he tells us, "but in most people’s minds; we are all still just one thing.”  Each artist’s work projected quietly out from its home along the wall, resonating distinctly.

I personally also got to spend time with two other Contrapunto artists: Dora Lopez and Pedro Fuertes, and it was with each of them that the second unexpected thing happened to me at an art exhibit: I was invited to touch their paintings; feel the texture; allow my fingertips to engage the canvas, much as my eyes had already.  

Both abstract painters, I had no idea, at first, that they are wife and husband.  Their works are at once similar and yet, so divergent.  Dora’s mixed media forms are full of gentle, blended hues, impressionistic overtones, like something remembered nostalgically.  Pedro’s expressionistic colors blast from the canvas with high definition, high contrast energy, with swirling masses of shade, punctuated suddenly with bright, semi-metallic edges and folds.  Texture, both visual and physical, plays an important role in both their expressions.  

On the wall space opposite Pedro, lush, dreamlike portraits by Catalina Gomez depict calm faces and candid poses.  

Across the hall, Graciela Bedoya’s surrealistic portraits harness a more desperate energy, depicting beautifully realized figures in the grip of menace or tribulation.  Next to her, Jorge Arcos’s geometric abstraction leads the eye around and round, chasing form and color.

(Yes, snacks were served)

I felt privileged to meet so many of the artists alongside their wonderful works; to be invited so openly to explore, even to touch (I’m not telling you to touch the paintings at Gallery72!  I’m pretty sure that will not be smiled upon most of the time, but like I said, it was a moment of privilege, in its fullest sense.  Okay?)  But please, do yourself the favor of sampling these diverse voices ringing out from the broad, bright spectrum that is the Latin-x community.

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Carlos Solis and his wonderful, wife and clothing designer, Chela suggested a wonderful Venezuelan restaurant to us, since DAP Tales was missing Venezuelan food. We were so glad we took his advice.

About alFalaq and DAP Tales

al-Falaq (a.k.a. P Bates) is a writer and illustrator living in Atlanta, Georgia. He loves cats and shares his home with an ornery fur ball with nine tales, at least!  His collection of poetry and short stories, Threadbare is available on Amazon. al-Falaq is also our resident blogger for our RGN on Location Blog.

Dap Tales (a.k.a. D P Bates)  is a writer/illustrator/graphic designer, living in Atlanta, Georgia. She is the illustrator and writer of a gorgeous book, PRIMARY COLORS AND ME, that introduces children ages 6 and under to color and design theory through the use of fun poems and beautiful color illustrations. (Click here, to check out the book trailer) This new material has led her to continue to explore primary colors and rubbings as a medium in her current artistic work. DAP is also the founding member of the RGN and Georgia Nutts Guild -- a support group for local authors who want to continue to practice and advance their writing skills and goals.