WHERE: El Paso Museum of Art.
WHEN: On view through May 26, 2013 in the Peter and Margaret de Wetter Gallery.
TITLE: Gene Flores: Proverbios and Dichos Chicanos
BRIEF ABOUT: This exhibit features works from the Museum’s 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 dry-point, which he uses to create a range of tones, textures, black-white contrasts, lines, and other marks from his stylus.
Printermaker Gene Flores was born and reared in El Paso and 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.
MORE DETAILS: Call 915.532.1707 or www.elpasoartmuseum.org.