The black blonde: erotic art Gerardo Gomez Navarro
Alvin Starkman, MA, LL.B.
Artist Gerardo Gomez Navarro lives in a lush setting, quiet and easy deliciously with her mother and three sisters. One would not expect to find art ranging from mild erotic and pieces that test the sensitivity of the most liberal among us. But yes, paintings that accompany religious images and scenes that express carefree childhood, they are of quite another subject, carefully hidden from view.
The women in the family textile fabric Gomez Navarro cotton on your back strap looms, while Gerardo is busy painting all sorts of contorted body parts spitting the lifeblood of humanity. On this day all of them, including the matriarch, the slight laugh and joke said in response to embarrassing questions and arguably, this writer's detachment to boot. No subject is taboo, no shame causes. Perhaps the environment, as Eden is the key to harmony between seemingly disparate forms of creativity in a family. Gerardo, single, lives in the rural world that is very Catholic and St. Thomas Jalieza, share the daily tasks and work space with three sisters and her mother single.
Jalieza Thomas is a small town about 35 minutes drive from the central city of southern Oaxaca. Oaxaca is located in a series of central valleys of the state of the same name, surrounded by the Sierra Madre del Sur mountain range. The region is a popular destination for travelers seeking cultural holidays – rich pre-Hispanic ruins, Dominican impressive churches dating from the 1500s and museums and galleries. The area is also known for his greatness cuisine, with possibly the best cuisine from all over Mexico – and of course its great variety of picturesque craft villages, including St. Thomas Jalieza.
Residents of St. Thomas have been weaving cotton cloth for generations, more recently mainly for the tourism industry – bed and table covers, roads tables and tablecloths, napkins, purses, belts with leather, purses, eyeglass cases, embroidered blouses, and much more. In the case of the family Navarro Gomez competition in this cottage industry dates back only a couple of generations, and Gerardo's parents did not leave the city until they married. Then become a priority to learn to knit, and with the assistance of relatives in the village, to teach their children.
Through livestock and agriculture the inhabitants of St. Thomas are still largely self-sufficient, if not rely on sheep, goats or cows, then surely the chickens – and of course subsistence crops such as corn and beans supplemented with cabbage. The vagaries of tourism in Oaxaca as required.
Navarro grew rejection formal education, either through design or circumstance, "I never finished public school. I thought I was not learning anything, and actually spent about four years languishing in the first grade. Finally, when I was 14 I packed in for good. "
But there was one teacher, Maestra Lupita, who did impact his future: "She was the only one, I now realize, he saw something in me that was different from the rest. She gave me crayons and sketchbook, and I left work. I never asked why I focus out, and she never offered an explanation. She just left me alone time, to draw. "
After school Navarro tend goats of his father, but sometimes doing a bit of leather, and regularly record their thoughts, even making verses. Twice the government has sent instructors to the village, initially to teach about working with animal skins, and then ordinary people to show how to combine textiles and leather to make bags and belts. Gary became an expert in making leather belts decorated with narrow bands cotton textiles produced by his sisters and mother at their looms.
But once again, rejected the agreement: "I do not like that type of work. I always felt under pressure and as I was not really creating anything. I had no freedom. For someone to say: "I need 20 tapes like this in two weeks, "only reinforced that I had to do something else and I removed from the lifestyle of those around me."
While Navarro enjoyed the freedom to care for the herd – even his father bought two cows when I was 21 years old – became very ill and was hospitalized. When he finally recovered he found that he could not attend the cattle. defenses His body never returned to their previous level of functioning, and therefore lacked the power and the strength needed for grazing.
In January 1994, he went to California, determined to start a new life: "I wanted to leave behind everything about my past, so even burned all my little writings of those afternoons in the fields. "He came back in May, having found a way of life in Los Angeles Worse, people always running around and seemed to be under an undue amount of pressure.
Within three months of the return of Navarro, his life had changed radically.
Over the years, women – the mother of Mariana and her daughters Margaret, Agnes and Crispina – developed a reputation for configuring the textiles of high quality cotton, usually setting them apart from most others in the city. Crispina, in particular, found a niche for itself, the tissue thread in the most intricate of designs. His fame spread to such an extent that she began receiving praise from the boats of fans, even outside of Mexico. She has been in the company of four presidents of Mexico, most recently visiting former President Vicente Fox at his ranch.
The family had been accustomed to receive dignitaries in their modest but spacious and immaculately maintained family. assist artists in their frequent House to buy crafts, and just to chat and spend a couple of hours with the family. Who would not be designed so that the family, who reside within one of the environments friendliest imaginable.
The acclaimed Oaxacan artist Juan Alcázar Fuentes and his wife Justina, a talented painter in her own right, was a couple of those. Navarro course knew nothing of the Master Alcázar at the time, except it was a city man who appreciates quality textiles. One day early August 1994, a visitor from Germany, Helmut Kohl, came to art Crispina mud. Navarro pointed leather, and suggested that it might consider taking classes Art with a friend, Juan Alcázar. Of course it was the same Juan Alcazar Navarro with whom he had known for about 15 years, unaware that Alcazar was a master up-and-coming contemporary Mexican art. Within days, Navarro was in Oaxaca to meet with Fortress, the 15th of the month that began to be trained by Alcazar and Sources
Over the next four years and half years, day after day, from nine to six, Navarro will visit the Alcazar / workshop Fuentes Free Workshop Graphic Oaxaca, initially working with pencil, then ink and watercolor over time. While others were in groups to take courses and Otherwise learn to be artists, Gary away in a corner, his back to them, working independently.
"Even looking at art books until I've been painting for ten years, "Alcázar advised, no matter, since Navarro had not cracked a book before, and never had the intention to do so. In fact, even today, Navarro argues that it never has been in an art book, or read about the theory or technique, and is alien to art of Chagall and Picasso – besides the fact that some customers have compared his work with these great masters.
Navarro has not taken an art class, and although Alcazar and Fuentes credits the development of their work and their success, they did not actually "teach" in the everyday sense of the word: "Never I have been able to tolerate a classroom environment, and in fact have never studied or worked in a group. I think that probably goes back to my years in the field. My father always I cautioned against socializing with other people who were caring for their own herds, for fear of distracting me. Of course, I have received guidance John and Justina, but no, no classes. "
Navarro had his first exhibition in 1995 after Kohl had advised him that he wanted show their work at a gallery in Ajijic. Gary had no idea what to expect. When Kohl accompanied the framer the day before the opening of the exhibition, he was taken aback at how different he looked after his work. But Kohl kept him grounded, "If you sell a piece to get lucky, with two sales considered a master, and never expects to sell three. "He learned that a gold star next to a piece he meant was sold. By 6 pm the first night of the show 15 of 16 gold pieces had stars.
None of these earlier works was put up for sale erotic, but from the beginning Navarro had been creating art with sexual content. Always afraid of exposing these parts, even in his own studio: "I still maintain eroticism, apart from the rest of my work, in a case separate plastic, face down. I will not show unless people ask to see them and also sometimes kids come to our house, so I have to care. Even my larger works are on the floor facing inward. "It points to a framed piece hidden behind another.
Narvarro has been painting most erotic art in recent years. But never simply decided "I'm going to do from today eroticism." In fact he not start with one idea in particular when it starts working, eroticism or power. The brush only takes them where to go, "My mind seems to flow like a river, and so just follow him, and if it continues to flow after I've finished a piece, then a sequence of pieces emerge. "
Many Navarro pieces include prose or poetry on an image. Sometimes the words come to him when he begins a piece, the content that inspires, and sometimes what he writes comes once a work has been completed. He embarrassingly admits, "I know because I am not educated, there are always errors in spelling and grammar." These works recall the style of Mexican votive painting, or ex – voting tradition.
In Navarre black gay blonde (2006), the message is clearly conveyed without the use of prose: the mistress of a watery and her boyfriend upset rejecting dismay on his understanding that she is not a natural blonde. double meaning the title is the only rhyme poetic enough, familiar imagery of the play serves to dispense with the need for more explicit eroticism.
In 1996, Fuentes Navarro said it was time to try to work with oils. She gave him a canvas and frame, and told him to buy a pair of tubes of paint. After he sold his first oil came out and spent 1,000 pesos as many tubes of paint as the money to buy. Everyone laughed, he had never heard of anyone spending all his money on paint so much. However, it was full of enthusiasm and ambition, so much so that in the next four months he had created 18 oils, exhibiting for the first time in 1997. The oils are among the erotic in his studio on the ground, facing the wall.
"You never know what people's reactions will be, or how they will be receptive to this type of art. Some time ago a woman from the city bought one of my erotic, oral sex siren with a mortal. She took her home and her husband would not let her hang in your home. So they came back together, and exchanged it for a painting of a couple making love, with a crucifix on the wall above them, and an angel passing over, covering the eyes of Jesus. "
- Someone approached me and said 'you are the devil. "My response was simple: at night all lie down and spread our legs, so what is wrong with this type of portrait in my art. "
For his oils and watercolors Navarro works in the brightest of colors. And with his ink drawings using sepia tones. Curiously, it is in his pieces in shades of black and brown in which he appears to let go and allow sex to dominate strange metaphors.
"I'm not interested in exhibiting my work in other countries," Navarro shows easily, then explaining its reasoning: "People come from far away to see me, not only my art. So what if I here? This is unfair to those who admire what I do, if they come by or contact me to make sure I'll be around, and I'm away. "
The sisters echo the same sentiment. They have only traveled abroad to present twice. And when it comes to parties and other obligations of the family in St. Thomas or Oaxaca, usually a family member will be at home at all times. Be available for those who appreciate his art is a priority.
Much of the erotic Gerardo Navarro talks about his personal philosophy about monogamy and marriage. He has not been in a long term relationship since it began his painting career about fifteen years ago. He sees marriage as a commitment that is not willing to do. "Marriage is like a grave" holds, then continues: "It kills love. In the world I know, men are not around all that much. They are outside the U.S. under the pretext of winning for their families, with women and children who stay at home to fend for themselves. What do women? "Silence ensues, leading to a really imagine what transpires behind closed doors in St. Thomas Jalieza. Gerardo Gómez Navarro returned to painting one of his favorite themes – the apple in the Book of Genesis, with Eve firmly in control.
About the Author
Alvin Starkman received his Masters in Social Anthropology in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, thereafter embarking upon a career as a litigator until 2004. Alvin now resides in Oaxaca, where he writes, leads small group tours to the villages, markets, ruins and other sites, is a consultant to film production companies, and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast. ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ) .
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