Artist photo
“Candombe,” oil on canvas, by Claudio Altesor.
Is there such a thing as a Latino aesthetic in art?
While the jury is out on that question, the first formal gallery show of Latino artists in downtown New Haven is unquestionably a significant event.
Ben Casiano with one of his female figures in the arts series, acrylic on canvas.
That consensus emerged at the opening reception of “Latin Figures,” the new show at Gateway Community College’s New Alliance Art Gallery at the corner of Church and George streets, which drew 40 admirers to the brightly lit, inviting gallery space for the Thursday night opening reception.
The show runs through Feb. 17. Organized and curated by Arte, Inc. in Fair Haven, it features the work of five mid-career artists: Claudio Altesor, Benjamin Casiano, Ricky Mestre, Eddie Nino, and Sandra Rossini.
It presents a range of styles and mediums, from Casiano’s big, Matisse-like bold color works, to Nino’s subdued but intense graphite portraits, to Mestre’s graphic art-inspired messaging.
Artist photo
“The Violinist,” acrylic on canvas, by Casiano.
The show is exuberant and doesn’t answer the question about what makes a figure Latino — the artists themselves disagreed — but it raises that useful question and along the way pleases the eye.
Arte’s David Greco, who curated the show with Casiano, said there are a lot of Latino artists at varying levels of achievement, many of whom have shown at Arte’s gallery in Fair Haven.
Casiano and Rossini in front of her work.
Yet with a few instances over the years of small exhibitions at restaurants or bank lobbies, there has never been a full fledged show of Latino artists’ work in a formal gallery space.
The current show is just that, and that’s why Greco pronounced it significant. He said the Gateway Foundation offered Arte a small grant during Hispanic Heritage week, which Arte helps to organize, and the show emerged out of that opportunity.
To help make the selection, Greco recruited Casiano. They agreed on showing established artists who do figurative work, with an emphasis on portraits.
Altesor in front of his large oil painting “Home.”
What resulted is a wide range of styles, represented by six or seven works per artist, that Gateway Professor Peter Benson, who hung the show, asserted all did indeed have a Latino aesthetic. “It’s passionate, it’s colorful, there’s a lot of emotion in [all] these images,” he said.
Sandra Rossini, who was born in White Plains, N.Y. to Argentine parents and visits the home country often, agreed with Benson’s adjectives and added some descriptors of her own, including “passionate.”
Classically conceived graphite portrait by Eddie Nino.
“There is underneath a certain flavor to Latin art. I’m very romantic. You can see it in the work. It’s something we innately have. It could be genetic,” she speculated.
Casiano said that he doesn’t think of things Latino when he works, but only tries to do something that he called “genuine” — so that viewers, when they see it, will declare that it must be a Casiano, he said.
He disagreed with this writer that the spirit of the great French colorist Henri Matisse might be sitting on his shoulder as an influence on his work. He said it was less that and even less the work of the Cubists.
“I’m an admirer of fashion and of stained glass. How do you convey stained glass on canvas?” he asked rhetorically.
Then he pointed to the strong black outlines around his figures, which, on harder looking, do appear to be like the leading or cement borders of sections on stained glass church windows.
“That’s where some of the inspiration comes from,” he added.
Artist photo
“Home,” oil on canvas, by Altesor.
Stamford-based Uruguayan-born artist Claudio Altesor politely yet vehemently said no Latino aesthetic exists. Many of the works he had on display at Gateway were from a series illustrating the history of candombe, a style of Afro-Uruguayan music, which he showed in Stamford.
That’s why his series begins with what appear to be 19th century-style landscapes. “Home” is an evocation of the African roots of the music, Altesor said. The series culminates in a surrealistic work called “Candombe,” which features a hand having left blood on a drum, along with a nod to Salvador Dali and a kind of magic realism.
Altesor said the face on this figure is his wife’s.
“We all have fusions. The concept of Latino art is very wide. You can’t box it in,” he added.
That debate aside, Benitez said she particularly loved Altesor’s tall portrait of a high wire artist called “Equilibrium.”
Ricky Mestre’s work employs graphic and poster elements to send messages.
Benitez pointed out the earnestness of the artist moving across the wire with the balancing bar in hand while she also balanced a globe of the world.
“The Latina woman who has to climb so high and be on the rope and holding the world in her hand! It’s how I feel sometime, to keep in balance,” she said.
Benitez said she is excited to see Altesor’s and the other Latino artists’ work downtown. “When I saw it from the street, I was so excited. The art is mature. It is significant,” she added.
