Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Politics, the Right to Choose (or not) and Vives-Atsara

Wendy Davis, Democratic State Senator for Forth Worth, spent 11 hours trying to filibuster the new restrictions on abortion rights. However, a few days later the Texas Senate passes the bill.  All this political debate, Austin antics and women rights conundrums beats loud in the ears of all Texans; ringing with an inescapable expletive of pros and cons.  

However, sides are not important right now! 

What is are the ways in which politics- social and collective seem to shape the world around us and how they force us to reinterpret our daily routines, lives and decisions.

This same investigative assessment can be applied to the re-interpretation of paintings, drawings, sculptures and other fine arts in the chaotic flux we call the art market. When we look at a selection of work by an artist, it is hard not to re-evaluate the assortment without being somehow influenced by the timely issues of today’s national scope of civil rivalries.  


Two paintings that bring to mind the political debate over women’s rights, their ability to choose and government policies and procedures are Jose Vives-Atsara’s Mother and Child and Madre Indigena.
While reproductive rights is front and center on the countrywide stage, Vives-Atsara’s motherly depictions are spot-on with a glowing aura of elegance; as public feedings, no less controversial, move within the women’s right to choose and her child rearing choices and actions in the public sector.

Known for his impressionistic landscapes of Padre Island, the villas of Spain, Texas scenery and wildflowers, Vives-Atsara’s portrait series does not garner much consideration except when systematically re-discovered by fine art appreciators; a long lost series of work that deepens the artists repertoire of genres- a credibility that demands attention.

Mother and Child is a side profile portrait of a woman with her child. While facing to the right the woman’s angle directs us down to the obscured child.  The slope of the vegetation and agave plants in the background align with the sweeping features of woman’s body, exposed flesh-nursing her young. We are directed along with visual route down through the pale blue coverings of the baby’s hood and jacket; pausing at the closed eyes.  We can sense the calming of oneself during the ceremonial feeding and natural nourishment.


Madre Indigena is the opposite angle of the other, a mother and child embracement that portrays the daily life of two symbiotic humans, locked together-one needing the other for life, for substance- nurturing of spiritual and metaphysical essence.  We as observers see the endearing grin of the mother, looking down to the child; reminiscent of a quasi-religious experience. Vives-Atsara’s setting, backdrop and environment in this painting speak to the proletariat, the worker in the field, the peasant, the Mercado worker; a public display of endearment that meets with mixed reactions depending on the viewing geography.

While both can lay the groundwork for discussion, each maintains and depicts the underlying womanly obligations, a chastise-able action by some, but painted with undeterred nobility.

 J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art is proud to offer for sale 15 portrait paintings of women by international artist, Jose Vives-Atsara.  

Be sure to see our full Vives-Atsara collection on our website at www.jrmooneygalleries.com

© Gabriel Diego Delgado/ J.R. Mooney Galleries



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