All posts tagged: Guanajuato

Jetsonorama on the Rez, ROA in Mexico (Video)

On the Navajo Reservation the built environment tends more toward the horizontal than say, Manhattan.  The similarity is that the man made structures for both are constructed on soil first belonging to the proud tribes of people we now call “Native Americans”.

brooklyn-street-art-jetsonorama-navajo-reservation-2 Mary Reese, by Jetsonorama (photo © courtesy of the artist)

Arizona based Street Artist Jetsonorama calls the Navajo Rez home and it is here where he plans most of his installations of wheat-pastes.  The flat lands and sun parched structures, sometimes crumbling back into the dust, provide a suitable open-air gallery for his photos.  The images are not somber, rather they are pulsing with life and possessing some urgency as if to remind you that these places are very alive and life stories are unfolding here.

These recent pieces are at the Cow Springs Trading Post. Judging from the scene, not much trading takes place there nowadays but Jetsonorama enlists its walls one more time to display the inhabitants of the area.

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“Deshaun”, Jetsonorama.  (photo © courtesy of the artist). “While installing at cow springs, we met a local youth named Deshaun.  His skateboard broke while he was showing us a trick.  We’re going to get him another one but he doesn’t know that yet.  Thanks for the love Deshaun” Jetsonorama

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Bryson with his nephew Owen. Jetsonorama (photo © courtesy of the artist)

ROA EN MEXICO : Un Video Nuevo

Belgian Street Artist ROA visited Mexico in January (see “ROA’s Magic Naturalism”) and now we have a video of his large installation in Mexico City. Whether in the detritus of the big metropolis or the bucolic country landscape, his unique and now iconic images of dead and alive animals rendered in perfect monochrome palette are never out of tune with their surroundings. Perhaps one key element in achieving this sense of context is ROA’s insistence on using as subjects the animals native to the land where he is painting.

ROA was invited by the art promoter MAMUTT ARTE in collaboration with the Antique Toy Museum Mexico (MUJAM). In the country for 3 weeks, ROA left  about 15 murals in various locations like Mexico City, Guanajuato and Puebla and also collaborated with Mexican artists Saner & Sego.

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ROA’s Magic Naturalism: Street Art’s Wild Kingdom in Mexico

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An ant eater inspects a new friend in a small town near San Miguel De Allende in Mexico. Piece by ROA (copyright Roa)

It was magic, Mexico”

ROA continues at the pace of a hungry prairie dog running across landscapes dusty and rusted in search of a fitting tableau for his traveling animal reserve. Fans of the Belgian Street Artist are accustomed to his rats and birds and furry creatures climbing rugged weathered urban walls in Europe and the US. More recently ROA discovered the enchanted sunlight that warms the winter earthen hues of central Mexico at the invitation of Gonzalo Alvarez of Mamutt Arte.

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A buzzard adorns this abandoned construction in an agricultural area north of Mexico City. ROA (photo copyright Roa)

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This “still life” by ROA is in collaboration with MUJAM (The Antique Toy Museum of Mexico City) (photo copyright Roa)

“I love to integrate the native animals of the country I visit,” he relates as he talks about the armadillo, buzzards, raccoon, anteater, and fighting cock he gave to his hosts in the metropolis Mexico City and a bit north in the tiny town of Jamaica in the State of Guanajuato.  Part naturalist and part social activist, ROA gives center stage to the underdogs of the natural world as if to elevate their status among the lions and peacocks of the planet.

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“This big armadillo was a new one for me, ” says the artist about his piece on the facade of The House of Cauce Ciudadano A.C., a non-profit youth services center that serves young people in Mexico City. ROA (photo copyright Roa)

Adhering to an austere monochrome palette, he swiftly renders his realist studies using cans and a variety of caps over a rollered silhouette of blanco, if necessary. With wiley coyote agility, a sharply assessing eye and an audacious appetite for painting as many walls as you can source for him, this quick-moving Street Artist continues to populate the wild ROA kingdom wherever he migrates.

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A visit to a farm raising roosters in Jamaica, Guanajuato inspired ROA to create a fowl portrait on the side of a home (below) (photo copyright Roa)

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ROA (photo copyright Roa)

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…….BSA…………….BSA…………………BSA…………..BSA…………….BSA…………………BSA

ROA would like to extend a big thanks for everything to the wonderful people who welcomed him in Mexico, particularly Gonzalo at Mamutt Arte and Roberto from MUJAM.

MUJAM (MUSEO DEL JUGUETE ANTIGUO MEXICO) http://toymuseummexico.com/

Click here to learn more about Cauce Ciudadado C.A.

More ROA on Brooklyn Street Art

brooklyn-street-art-roa-jaime-rojo-05-106VIDEO: ROA on the Water Tower

VIDEO: ROA in NYC with BSA – The Ibis

INTERVIEW: Winging It With ROA – FreeStyle Urban Naturalist Lands Feet First in Brooklyn

Flying High With ROA in Brooklyn, NYC

Photo copyright Jaime Rojo

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