Brownsville Museum of Fine Art...

Only a few days left, exhibit ends:

Saturday February 2, 2013

10:00 am - 3:45 pm

The Art of Brownsville - Texas by Gabriel Trevino

EL RIO - 2012- 4FT X 4FT - ACRYLIC ON WOOD PANEL BY GABRIEL TREVINO

The art of Brownsville by Gabriel Trevino (notes as of 1/27)

"Without legitimate evaluation perhaps the art on your wall is as important as the leaves falling from a tree on a windy day" ....

"We can only try to put local art into perspective, to search for the true nature that inspires it, for what makes it unique , and perhaps to understand how it is evolving." 

 It is interesting to see how regardless the artist style, approach or application, whether Surrealist, Cubist, Abstract or Expressionist and or as contemporary as it may be, art produced on the border, it seems to be somehow over shadowed direct and indirectly by the underlying context such as : Chicano Art, Border Art , Mexican-American Art, South Texas Art, Barrio Art, Latin American Art and or Frontera Art .  

As local artists continue to distinguish themselves, the ideas and the imagery being produced along the border, may in fact keep it from being accepted as anything else... Must an artist embrace the idea of being part of a border art movement and nothing else ?

Should we then question the idea, must an artist step outside the border to be accepted as part of all the other movements in the contemporary art world ? Is the border like a magnetic field that surrounds, pulling towards it all that  is produce as part of its own nature ? 

Artist that grew up in both Matamoros and Brownsville, that reflect in their art the local culture, not necessarily by influences but simply acknowledgement of who they are, perhaps carry a distinguishable difference. It is art in its true form, and nature, an artist simply only reacting to its environment.

Within the last 20yrs, Brownsville Texas has certainly attracted artists from both Mexico and from all over the United States. Some artists have been inspired and influenced by living on the border, to produce most work related to border issues.   

"An artist must do it himself".... he must be the artist, the promoter, the art dealer, the critic, the gallery owner, the teacher, the museum staff and perhaps if not the most important,, the viewer...
It is an artist world to do what he chooses, to make what he can with it, and to accept and learn to live with his or her own making. 
 I have seen the many faces of art, from starving artist to artist in the cover of magazines, the faces are the same...

Take the artist from the this land and is he not an artist anymore?
At the same time you try to understand the artist, you must then perhaps try to understand the Mexican - American border : the people, the culture, the politics, the media, but importantly the history ....

 I sometimes think its better to look at local art not as what one local artist is doing but what all of them are doing which is one of my favorite reasons to continue with The Art of Brownsville blog.. I think for me, reflecting in art in such a manor, helps to recognize what is inspiring, perhaps what is trending and  to see how art may be evolving within our art culture..

RUSTEBERG ART GALLERY - OPENS 1/22/2013 AT 6PM

PRESS RELEASE...
Place: 
The Art Gallery In the Rusteberg Building
80 Fort Brown
Brownsville, TX 78520
Cameron
United States

When:
01/22/2013 - 02/15/2013 (6pm)
Phone: 956 882-7097

He lives in Monterrey, Mexico. Among his many awards are first prizes at the Cintermex Drawing Contest and the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León Watercolor Contest. His works have been exhibited in Romania at the Bistrita Museum of Nazaud as well as in all of the major cities of Mexico.

“…An artist who finds peace being devout to his relative roots…”
–Jesus Flores Villegas
(Art Commentator)