A couple of weeks ago I received this question from my good friend, Mary Tomas, of MARY TOMAS GALLERY... "Can you tell me what are some of the hottest wall colors this season? Want to paint our floating wall in the gallery where two pieces of art will hang. One is a charcoal drawing on white canvas with a hint of blue and one painting uses mostly sky blues. Currently the wall is a blue grey. Looking for a possible change."
Gallery wall before.
Gallery wall after.
I suggested to Mary, not having seen the art yet, that 3 colors I would suggest were orange, turquoise, or violet. Orange being my first choice as it is the complimentary color to blue.
I visited the gallery today to see the art on display of 3 outstanding Hispanic artists the gallery is featuring right now in honor of Hispanic Heritage month, and was so pleased they chose the orange for the focal gallery wall! The art, by Carlos Cancio from Puerto Rico looks fantastic on the hot backdrop.
Works by Carlos Cancio
Carlos, always fascinated by the magical realism art and story- telling movement born in the years after World War 1, graduated from Boston University and then moved to Gibraltar to establish his first studio where his career took root. He describes his work as magical realism, and I agree! Very Magical!
Around the corner from the "orange wall" is the fabulous oversize painting by Fred Villanueva called the "Lion Hunt". Fred was born in our very own Oak Cliff, and graduated from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts before attending the San Francisco Art Institute, then on to the Parsons School for Design apprenticing with the late conceptual artist Dennis Oppenheim.
Lion Hunt by Fred Villanueva
Mary Anne with Mary and Alberto Tomas next to Santana's piece Perception of Reality
On the flip side of the orange wall we encountered my favorite of the show, the large work by Norlan Santana, featuring and incredible mix of media from oil paint and ink to tinted beeswax, charcoal and octopus ink! Love this work! The art of Santana is being shown in Dallas for the first time at the Mary Tomas Gallery. He is a noted contemporary abstract painter from Nicaragua devoted to making art critical of the social and cultural context of Central American countries, exploding with color, shape and form, and based in primitivism. His works may be seen in important collections in Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, USA, Canada, Central America, France, Japan, and Italy!!! Whew!! Impressive! Go see!!
MARY TOMAS GALLERY- 1110 Dragon Street Dallas, Texas 75207
This is a must see show!