Helio Montiel

Rubn Ortiz-Torres

Sal Villa

Mexican Painting from the 80s

15 January to 14 February

Opening 15 January 5 - 7

Diaz Contemporary is pleased to present paintings by Mexican artists Helio Montiel, Rubn Ortiz-Torres, and Sal Villa as the inaugural show of 2015. This exhibition will showcase works that reflect stylistic and political shifts that occurred within Mexican painting during the 1980s, not well known to Canadian audiences.

Art historian Marina Dumont-Gauthier demarcates this period of Mexican art as witness[ing] the rise of Neo-Mexicanism. A new, or rather, a different kind of mexicanidad reflected a crisis of values felt by Mexican artists and their need to reconsider the significance of their national and cultural identity. The work of Helio Montiel, Rubn Ortiz-Torres, and Sal Villa in this exhibition, Mexican Paintings from the 80s, mirrors that crisis felt by these artists and their somewhat violent departure from the hegemonic post-revolutionary aesthetic formula.

2015 also marks the tenth anniversary of Diaz Contemporary and offers an opportunity to return to the gallerys programming history and its continued investment in promoting Mexican artists abroad.