Ismael Vargas (México, b. 1947)

Born in 1947 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Ismael Vargas is one of the most significant artists working in the “neo-Mexican” style, which is characterized by its focus on quintessentially Mexican objects. Having made a career of depicting the applied arts and crafts of his country – shawls, pots, Day of the Dead skulls, etc. – Vargas straddles the border between folk and fine art, paying homage to one in the language of the other. His compositions often approach abstraction, and he has, in fact, described himself as an abstract artist. This self-taught artist is one of the foremost proponents of the “neo-Mexican” style. Vargas is concerned with the concept of mexicanidad or, roughly, “Mexican-ness”. He explores the very conception of this myth, revealing the fictions of the real and the phantasm of origins. Even in his earliest works he displayed a fascination for the small, sometimes insignificant, but always innately Mexican objects of everyday life, such as the patterns of the clothing of indigenous people. His paintings can be read as paradigms of the spectacular grandiosity of forms and colors in traditional Mexican life and art. He manipulates color, shading, and the size of objects to create a greater sense of depth and meaning in his images. There are no borders in his works. Rather, the viewer is left to believe that he or she is catching a mere glimpse of a larger whole. This approach is repeated throughout his many works, and although strikingly similar, no two pieces are alike.

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