“Astral views of the cosmos, coral formations, planetary cities, a forest landscape:” the associations and superlatives flow from the viewers as effortlessly as the art of Kenneth Wood seems to come together. The collection in his studio and at his home in Santiago Atitlán, not only pleases the eye, it also gives recycled newspaper new life, plus it generates income for an organization of physically and mentally challenged youth.

Kenneth Wood has called Santiago Atitlán home for the last eight years. As founder of Pueblo a Pueblo, a Washington D.C.-based non-profit organization dedicated to the empowerment of Guatemalan indigenous communities, he helped start a community hospital in Santiago Atitlán. Later, Kenneth turned his energies to create employment opportunities for challenged Maya youth at ADISA (Asociación de Padres y Amigos de Personas con Discapacidad or Association of Parents and Friends of People with Disabilities), a local non-profit organization, and subsequently this unique art form.

“We started out by creating paper bowls with recycled newspaper,” says Kenneth. “My idea was to provide meaningful and lucrative employment for each person in the group, regardless of the challenges they face individually.” Preparing and creating paper objects requires a large range of skills including: measuring, cutting, ironing, rolling, gluing, folding and counting. The majority of the young adults at ADISA live with developmental challenges as a result of birth defects or early child illnesses. Many are wheelchair-bound, one is legally blind, another an amputee. The complexity of creating paper art provides an opportunity for everyone to make a contribution.

“Teaching and working with these youths is extremely rewarding, not only because they are expanding their capacities by meeting their challenges, but because these individuals work as a team, a community; each pulling his or her weight with joy and excitement; taking great pride in what they have created together,” says Kenneth. On average 15 young adults from ADISA work daily on different paper products. As everyone became more proficient and as more creative ideas emerged from the group, ADISA dropped all its other sheltered workshop activities to concentrate solely on paper skills. “As ADISA’s paper products became more commercially successful, I decided to withdraw from daily involvement and support them by purchasing paper elements for my art.”

Once Kenneth picks up his weekly order of processed paper materials, he retreats to his studio, a traditional stone house with a thatched roof hidden among generous greenery in the Guatemalan highlands. Here, a metal frame is waiting to be filled with thinly rolled paper of all shapes and textures. At the time of my visit, he was working on a large commission for a restaurant on the central square of La Antigua Guatemala as well as a 34-square-foot residential installation.

Kenneth was only nine years old when he begged his parents to send him to his first art class. Since then he has worked with various media, including painting, stained glass and glass blowing. “This work with paper takes me back to childhood with Lincoln Logs and puzzles,” he says, making a sweeping gesture through the studio. “Much of my previous art experiences come together in this unique media. The work, or more accurately said, ‘joy,’ gives me an avenue to meditative expression and a sense of connection beyond the personal. I plug into the creative process and become a vehicle. My job as an artist is to remain open, balanced and receptive so that the un-manifested can take form. When I get lost in the process, I have to admit I get a little scared. That feeling tells me that I am out of my head and something previously unknown and unexpected is about to reveal itself,” he says as he explores the limits of this new art form.

His finished pieces convey a sense of balance, calm aand tranquility. Yet, each creation is made up of thousands of tiny paper pieces that draw the viewer into a complex universe of incredible detail.

During a workweek, Kenneth uses several thousand basic units of paper that ADISA has prepared. Many of the more intricate elements he makes himself in his studio. “I find some irony and pleasure in transforming gory and negative images and stories in old newspapers into something positive and beautiful. There is something elegant about that,” Kenneth says.

His type of art and these designs lend themselves to public art: restaurants, hotel lobbies, office buildings as well as residential art. “It’s comfortable yet mysterious… easy to live with and continuously evocative,” he says. “My home is a virtual gallery and I am both pleased to live with these mysterious works as well as share them with guests in my home.” Besides assignments in major hotels and restaurants and sales to individual collections in Guatemala, Kenneth is expanding his work to include sales and commissions in the United States. “I particularly appreciate the opportunity to travel to the States where I can design and construct larger commissions on site.”
And what inspires his work? “Look,” as we ventured outside his studio and our eyes followed a horizon of three towering volcanoes and jagged mountain ridges, “I have been blessed. I am fortunate enough to live in a paradise on Lake Atitlán in Guatemala, while collaborating with special-needs Maya youth and creating environmentally friendly art. This is where my inspiration comes from.”

An exhibition of Kenneth’s work can be seen at Galería Mesón Panza Verde (MAP L4) beginning in mid-March. You are cordially invited to meet the artist and see his latest work at the opening party on March 13th at 5 PM. For more information, visit www.kennethwoodpaper.com.

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Photos by: Juan M. Sisay

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Dr. Luhmann first traveled to Latin America in 1987, beginning an ongoing interest and fascination with Latin countries and culture. After his early travels, he studied medicine and went on to work as a general surgeon in the 1990s. He later turned his attention to neural therapy, specializing in alternative treatments of chronic pain disease. At the end of the millennium, he moved to Guatemala, where he now resides with his family in a home he built on a cliff overlooking Lake Atitlán.

Dr. Luhmann has been painting since childhood, guided, on one hand, by his mother’s teaching, and his father’s esthetic inspiration on the other. He later studied with US artist Guido Bondioli.

Dr. Luhmann’s painting has evolved from realistic-expressionistic origins to a unique abstract expressionism. By letting go of concrete figures, Dr. Luhmann unlocks the imagination of the observer, allowing them to connect with the painting on a variety of emotional and intuitive levels. His compositions of rich, contrasting colors and patterns draw the eye of the observer into the painting, creating an array of potential worlds, each with a countless variety of possibilities.

As in the microscopic cellular world of the human body, one discovers ever more details and loses oneself in a fantastic realm. The esthetics of the micro- and macroscopic human body provide Dr. Luhmann with an abundance of ideas and suggestions, though he never thinks of specific figures or forms while painting, resulting in the intersection of intent and randomness.

On October 10^th at 5 PM, there will be an inauguration of Dr. Luhmann’s exhibit Random Intent at Panza Verde (MAP L4).

         

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Of course it would be an offense, a cultural and social attack, to actually paint murals on the beloved walls and monuments of Antigua. So, Guillermo has employed technology to make his vision a reality. Using his camera, a tablet, a computer, and most importantly a pen in his hand, he uses Antigua’s walls as his canvas.

Guillermo has found that not all the walls have stories to tell, not all of them deserve to wear the dreams of someone else, so he chooses his canvases carefully. “Whenever I go out, I go with care and attention, because at any moment some wall may whisper to me and send me back home to draw on it for you, and then to bother you, to wake you up.”

This month, the work of Guillermo García-Duán is featured on Qué Pasa’s cover.
To see more of his art, go to: www.flickr.com/photos/guillermogd/sets

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Nora Demattio y Víctor Sales

Artist Nora Demattio noticed during her academic career that, today, when one speaks of gender equality, the emphasis is usually focused on women. But man should not be set-aside in reconciliation for past errors. He too deserves his place. And in his place one will find that there is great diversity to the male gender. With  the intent to transcend society’s definitions of what it is to be a man, Nora and her partner, Víctor Sales, reflect on the concept of masculinity through the camera’s lens and present to us their exhibit Hommenaje.

The title, Hommenaje, is a play on words from the Spanish word homenaje(tribute; a demonstration of respect, admiration, and esteem made to a person), and the French word homme (man).

Together Nora and Víctor express, respectively, two different but complementary concepts in Hommenaje:  The idea that man’s vulnerability is demonstrated when he is on display in his environment; and a rescue of man and his unobserved daily actions from oblivion, with the goal of restoring his place in his environment.

Nora’s work seeks to answer the question: What is man? While society often imparts the definition on the individual through his gender, Nora seeks to criticize the idea of an ideal man and looks for true diversity on and behind the scene. While the display of man “on stage” – under the spotlight – contrasts vivid colors and light and dark, the Lomographic style of man “off-stage” casually expresses the instant and highlights the beauty of imperfection, which is something she aims to display.

El Afilador by Víctor Sales

Víctor defines his photos in Hommenajeby using black and white, high-contrast, and elements of color, to show us man and his place in society, especially those men who have been forgotten. He focuses on everyday people; the men we often forget to look in the eye: the shoe shiner, the street vender, the garbage collector – the unsung heroes of the city – in an attempt to demonstrate the charm in every facet of man, and to reconnect with the wide variety of manifestations that have always been here.

Sin título by Nora Demattio

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Brielle Duflon

Some we choose; others are unavoidable; but in the end, among them are those we decide to show the world and those we do not.  What are they?  They’re the different variants that make up identity.  This is the theme that runs through the work of this emerging artist who, through her surrealist brushstrokes, seeks to capture her feelings and her particular and distinctive approach to the identity of being.

Brielle Duflon was born in Texas and eight months later arrived in La Antigua Guatemala. For the next 17 years she lived in this city, then traveled back to her home country, where she spent a year serving the community before entering the University of Virginia to study engraving.  But it was in Italy where she began her oil-painting studies.

The daughter of artists – her mother a painter and her father a photographer – she grew up in the world of art, and with her parents’ support and influence, her artistic horizons were expanded. She tells us of her love of photography, but that the medium is more personal than competitive.  Her other interests include black-and-white engraving, mosaics, writing, and painting.

Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele can all be found among her artistic influences. “Art is one of the few things that attracts very different people. In other contexts, almost none of them would be where they are,” she tells us.

“The process of art has always been very important to me, as much as the final product.”  Her father always worked with wood which grew nearby, and this exposure to woodworking brought out her natural abilities with the medium, making carving and engraving important parts of her artistic expression.

“This year I wanted to work more with paintings, partly because I don’t have everything I need for my engravings, but also because I wanted to paint the things I love about Guatemala and Central America – the climate, the sun, the colors, fruits and flowers – the things which cannot be represented well in black and white.  Color is required for these, so now I’m working in oil on wood,” she says of her current projects.

Regarding her latest works, Brielle tells us about the core on which her oeuvre is built: “My paintings are about identity, but from a different approach since identities are created by different variables.  Some are unavoidable, like family, race, that sort of thing.  Some we decide to add to our own identity, while others we choose not to show to the rest of the world.  This is a part of who we are, because identity truly involves what we decide to show others.”

On October 12, Brielle’s first independent exhibition, entitled “La Ecuación del Ser”
(“The Equation of Self”) will open at 5 PM
at the Panza Verde Gallery (MAP L4).

Photos by Victor Gonzáles

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As above so below

Born in New York but raised in Puerto Rico, this formally trained and talented artist is showing 20 of his paintings at La Antigua Galería de Arte.

The collection titled Re-Inventing Icons is a commentary on the relationship between four cardinal ideas: colonialism; neo-colonialism, which Patrick McGrath Muñiz represents through consumerism and mass media culture; mythology; and religion.  With his paintings, Patrick is attempting to “trace a line between these concepts and to make people reflect on these ideas and how they relate to one another.”

Patrick’s experience of growing up in Puerto Rico – specifically the colonial and neo-colonial experience – has had great influence on his work and was the foundation for his thesis at Savannah College of Arts and Design, where he received a Masters in Fine Arts degree. “As an artist, I am using the imagery of colonial art in Latin America, specifically from colonial painter Puerto Rican José Campeche, and reinterpreting this [imagery] in the light of neo-colonial issues, such as consumerism. I’m taking all these iconic images and re-contextualizing them in terms of contemporary culture and how they relate to our experience today in a globalized world.” The images of consumerist icons, such as multinational corporation logos that are found in his paintings, have, for Patrick, “been replacing the traditional icons.” His work is essentially a commentary on how consumerist icons are taking over and replacing holy images, and how they have gained the same kind of status as their consecrated predecessors.

Patrick has been showing his paintings in La Antigua since 2007. He believes there are many similar elements between Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he lived, and La Antigua, making our post-colonial city an appropriate place to exhibit his work. When asked whether he thinks Re-Inventing Icons will strike a chord with Antigüeños, his response was quick: “I hope so. There have been different reactions before when I’ve showed similar work [in La Antigua]. In 2009, when I had an exhibition there, Saints and Allegories, there was mixed reaction. It was mostly positive, but I also had reactionary responses to the work because people are very sensitive about religious issues. What I want to make clear is it is not my intention to criticize the church in any way; instead it is a commentary on how consumer culture has become a new religion today.”

Globadoracion

Included in the collection are pieces which can be seen as poking a bit of fun at today’s mass media culture, such as the triptych “Immaculate Implants,” as well as pieces which make serious commentary on neo-colonialism, consumerism and today’s society, such as “Allegory to Justice” and “The Flight,” a powerful painting depicting Mary and Joseph’s familiar quest for shelter set along the southern border of the United States.

Because of Patrick’s talent and style of painting, at first glance these paintings could been seen as excellent reproductions of classic colonial art, but with a closer look one can clearly see the intention of the artist is not to reproduce, but to reinterpret these classic icons while questioning our modern day perspective and establishing a relation between what is happening today and what used to happen in colonial times.

For more information, visit La Antigua Galería de Arte (MAP F2) or go to artintheamericas.com

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This festival was founded in 2003 by the Spanish Cultural Center of Guatemala, and has gained in popularity each September. It has become the most important forum about photography in the country, and it aims to help strengthen the image as a document, a record, and primarily as a means of expression, thought, and form. The festival also seeks, through the visual medium, to provide a means toward reflection and debate on subjects related to Guatemalan society.

This year’s FOTO>30, which occurs during National Photography Month here in Guatemala, will celebrate its ninth anniversary with the theme “Nation.” The competition is open to all persons and cultural institutions wishing to participate in activities related to photography and to images in general. All reflective observations of reality are welcome in either analog or digital formats.

© Sergi Camara

The theme of “Nation” refers to the historical, social, political, cultural, and even territorial constructs which determine identities and political groupings of people within a state.  This particular definition does not just mean the country’s tales, its landscapes, its people, or any other particular element, but emphasizes reflection and debate on those aspects which make a nation more that its physical characteristics or geographical boundaries.

Via photographic images, the festival’s activities seek to answer the questions “Is Guatemala a Nation?”, “What Nation is being/has been built?”, “What does ‘Nation’ mean in Guatemala?”  These questions of nationhood will be explored through many different sub-themes and formats. The aim is to reflect on the different legal and political aspects that enable nationhood within the Guatemalan state.

In a statement, the FOTO>30 organization says, “In a year of change associated with the general election, we think that visual reflection on these issues can contribute to the strengthening of civic consciousness and the change of administration in regards to the dynamics and parameters that govern a country.”

© Dulce Pinzón

With such an important issue and interesting proposal, once again the FOTO> 30 Festival is breaking new ground this September and will provide unique insights and a revolution of conscience through images and other visual activities.

There will be show openings, exhibitions, and celebrations throughout the entire month in the Historic Downtown area of Guatemala City, as well as at other various galleries and art venues in the capital, in La Antigua, and in Quetzaltenango.

For more information:
www.foto30.com
www.cceguatemala.org

Photos from Spanish Cooperation

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Writter and Poet

Existential or anthropological concerns, the dark parts of ourselves, and that which motivates us to act in certain ways are all issues which, in our day-to-day lives, we usually choose not to think about or we set aside, but for this writer from Jocotenango, that’s not an option.

Rafael Romero, born 32 years ago in this city near La Antigua, spent most of his life in his hometown of Jocotenango until 6 years ago, when he left Guatemala to move to Spain where he has resided ever since. Living in Madrid has left its mark on this author, since it was a radical change that came to better both his life and his art.

His literary beginnings started at age 17 as a result of high school work, then his reading led him to discover great Latin American writers such as César Vallejo, who inspired him to begin writing poetry, Julio Cortázar, Jorge Luis Borges, and Carlos Fuentes, among others.  The list also includes the Guatemalan writers Luis Cardoza y Aragon and Luis de Lión, and he counts all of them as pillars of his career, because, as he says, “If I had not read their works, I would not have started my career as a writer.”

After having left Guatemala, he started keeping a blog called Mula que es Uno (The Idiot That Is Oneself) in order “to maintain the link with culture, with our language, with the way we express ourselves.” Two years ago he began to be published in magazines, and now runs his own called Te Prometo Anarquía. (I Promise You Anarchy). Now 15 years “after all that silence which I passed through,” after his ideas have matured, after having assimilated the influence of the authors he read when he was younger, and after having adapted his writing to a new literary vision, he comes to us with several offerings:  his novel El Elegido (The Chosen One), his book of poems Distensión del Ansia (Distention of Anxiety) and his book of short stories Génesis y Encierro (Genesis and Closure).

His literature has led him to venture into inhospitable yet enriching places, such as inside the self, and that which can be seen beyond, and that which is inside of each of us. “I’ve always had this tendency to question what we do here, where we came from. The obvious doesn’t interest me.” Those things which can cause repulsion or rejection are “precisely the raw materials with which I build my work. It’s exactly what I like to explore. It’s what I try to capture in my writing, both in poetry and in narrative,” he concludes.

The online magazine Te Prometo Anarquía (I Promise You Anarchy) is a project which aims to be a showcase and open space for young, emerging, and little-known artists who want to exhibit their ideas, whether they are writers, poets, or artists born in Guatemala. For more information,visit teprometoanarquia.com

Génesis y Encierro

Distensión del Ansia

El Elegido (The Chosen One)

El Elegido(The Chosen One), writtenin a first-person confessional style with colloquial language,tells the story of Bartolo, a brokencharacter, a street-corner drunk,a shy, somewhat asexual person towhom drinking is the only thingthat matters. The story unfoldsaround him as a tragedy whichfinds him, although he never seeks it.

rafaelromero.bubok.es

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Dresden Codex

Dr. Oswaldo Chinchilla, the curator of the Museo Popol Vuh – one of the most interesting and complete museums of Mayan heritage in Guatemala – spoke to us about the museum: its history, its future, and how the museum is contributing to the preservation and understanding of Guatemala’s cultural heritage.

Tell us about the history of the Museo Popol Vuh. In 1978, George and Ella Castillo offered their extensive collection of pre-Colombian and colonial art, plus traditional Guatemalan textiles to Francisco Marroquín University. This was the beginning of Museo Popol Vuh. The exhibition includes artifacts from the Pacific Coast, the Highlands and the Lowlands from the Paleo-Indian (15,000 to 9,000 BC), Archaic-Preclassic (9,000 BC – AD 250), Early Classic (AD 250-600), Late Classic (AD 600-900) and Post Classic (AD 900 to 1500) periods.

How aware are foreign tourists of this museum? Interestingly, we have a very good tourist attendance. The problem, however, is that most tourists avoid Guatemala City because they are unaware of the tourist destinations in the capital. The moment they get off the plane, they rush to La Antigua and other tourist destinations. They’re mostly here to catch a flight. So, it’s just when they take a very short tour of the city that they realize that there is a wealth of information on Mayan history and culture available at the museum.

What sets the Museo Popol Vuh apart from other museums in Guatemala? We are pioneers and trendsetters in many ways. For example, we started educational courses relevant to the museum. There are different subjects of study which help keep interest in the history of this culture alive. We hold workshops and talks by various archaeologists who are actively involved in digs around the country and who give the students a first-hand perspective on the subjects they are studying.

Mascaron De Piedra

Mascaron De Piedra

How aware do you think Guatemalans are of their heritage, specifically the museum’s namesake, the Popol Vuh? The Popol Vuh is a compulsory book in the syllabus of many schools and colleges. But paradoxical ly, many Guatemalans are illiterate and have never attended school. For this portion of the community, unfortunately, there is no access to information about their rich cultural heritage. So, if we don’t keep taking concrete steps to preserve this legacy, we stand the chance of losing it and its teachings.

What steps are being taken to prevent this from happening? Francisco Marroquín University, in collaboration with the Museo Popol Vuh, is committed to fostering enthusiasm and creating a spirit of inquiry in the community about the Mayan cultural heritage. A lot of schools hold day-trips here, and we are constantly holding competitions and workshops to keep people abreast of information on excavations happening around the country and of the latest research papers.

What does the future holds for the Museo Popol Vuh as an institution? We constantly try to be innovative and attempt to set an example – many other museums are now following suit. We insist on research at the institution so we can generate new knowledge. If museums like us don’t constantly evolve, then instead of being research institutions, they tend to become exhibition halls. We are a small institution, and making big plans for the future is difficult; the only way to achieve our desired goals is to multiply our knowledge and experience. We need to do more research, keep up with new and powerful technologies, exhibit and publish our findings, and take our resources to new places.

Photo by Ajita Chowhan

DID YOU KNOW?
The Popol Vuh is one of the most important pieces of indigenous literature in the Americas. The book tells the K’iche’-Mayan version of creation, the adventures of the twin gods, Hunahpú and Xbalanqué, and the history of the K’iche’ Maya until the Spanish conquest. While the author is unknown, the Popol Vuh was first written in approximately AD 1550.

While the original Popol Vuh text has been lost, the oldest remaining transcript was made by Dominican Friar Francisco Ximenez during the early 18th century. He is also the author of the first known Spanish translation of the Popol Vuh, entitled Empiezan las Historias del Origen de los Indios de esta Provincia de Guatemala (The Beginning of the Origen Stories of the Indians of this Province of Guatemala), which is now housed in the Ayer Collection of the Newberry Library of Chicago after being extracted from the library of the University of Guatemala by the French Abbot Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, who was the first to publish the complete manuscript. Since then, there have been numerous editions and translations.

The literal translation of “Popol Vuh” is “Book of the Mat.” For Mesoamericans, mats were a symbol of authority and the power of kings. They were used as seats for high-ranking rulers and individuals. For this reason, the title is also translated as “Book of Counsel.” Paraphrased from “El Popol Vuh” [popolvuh.ufm.edu/index.php/El_Popol_Vuh]

The Museo Popol Vuh is located on the campus of  Francisco Marroquin University at 6a. Calle Final, Zone 10, Guatemala City. The museum is open Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM and on Saturdays from 9 AM until 1 PM. Entrance is Q35 for adults, Q15 for students with ID, and Q10 for children under 12. There is a small fee to take photos or video (Q15 or Q25, respectively); tripods and flash are prohibited.

For more information about the museum or their schedule of events and courses, call 2338-7896, emailpopolvuh@ufm.edu or go to popolvuh.ufm.edu.

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ArtPhotoSynthesis Light, Shadow, and Reflection. An exhibit of Vera’s simple and elegant blending of art with photography. Nineteen pieces: eighteen from the North American continent, plus one at sea. One decade, three cameras.

Multifaceted, Vera considers herself an “artist with a camera”. Her family was involved in the arts and music, and at an early age, she developed an interest in the arts and tried various kinds of media including paint, clay, wood, and charcoal, eventually focusing her talents on using a camera. She watched photos develop in her father’s dark room where she picked up the basic methods, and taught herself through experimentation.

Vera has traveled extensively worldwide and has created a large portfolio of her travels. In 2001, her interest turned to artistic photography focusing mainly on themes of harmony. Several of her art photos were exhibited in Ontario, for which she received first-place awards.

“Nature is my teacher.”  Vera ‘makes’ art photos that are often inspired by the natural world. On the whole, what she feels and sees through the lens of a camera is conveyed in, and at times metamorphosed into, an art form that is simple and elegant.

From time to time, it is not the price of the tools, but rather a few words of encouragement that can make the difference in what is accomplished. In 2001, Colorado photographer Michael Gray enhanced Vera’s confidence in the artistic perspective she’d had all along, which proved to be a pivotal point for her. She hopes that perhaps this shared experience and the ArtPhotoSynthesis exhibit will play forward the value a few words can have, and possibly inspire other artistic souls.

The inauguration of Vera’s exhibit of ArtPhotoSynthesis, will be held at Galería Panza Verde (MAP  L4) on Wednesday, June 8th at 5 PM. For more information, email artphotosynthesis@gmail.com or visit www.artphotosynthesis.com.

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