Crossroads Gallery @ Downtown South Bend
The Institute for Latino Studies presents:
Mestizaje
Alejandro Romero, featured artist
Tuesday, February 23 - Friday, April 30, 2010
Opening Reception: Friday, March 5, 2010
Crossroads Gallery, Downtown South Bend
Open Monday-Friday, 9:00 am - 4:00 pm
Painter and muralist Alejandro Romero was born in Tabasco, Mexico, in 1948. Growing up and attending school in Mexico City, Romero developed an interest in art and went on to apprentice under the famous Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. Romero received his formal training at the Academy of San Carlos, the Art School of Vincennes, the Artists? Collective at Taos, New Mexico, and the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1975 he left Mexico and made his way north to Chicago?s Pilsen neighborhood.
In these newly created works Romero captures memories of the religious icons and paintings from the Mexican cathedrals of his youth, his journey to the US and life in the city of Chicago, and vividly brings to life the spirit of mestizaje, the blending of pre-Columbian cultures with that of the Europeans, and their transformation after coming to a new land, the United States of America. Romero?s unique style brings together a variety of elements: pre-Columbian history, religious iconography, bright colors, and overlapping detail. Complex, vibrant, full of energy and emotionally intense themes, his work reflects the blending of European and Latin American Influences in a synthesis distinctively Latino.
Romero?s work has been exhibited in the United States, Mexico, and throughout the world. Examples of his paintings, drawings, and prints are housed in the permanent collections of a number of major institutions, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Institute, and the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago; the Museum of Modern Latin American Art in Washington DC, and the Museum of Print in Mexico City.
View the Virtual Gallery (Coming Soon)