Prada Gallery is the newest space for Contemporary
and local artists in Washington, D.C.
Anima
Raúl Vásquez is one of Panama’s best known artists, and has exhibited his art all over the world. He was born in Los Santos Province in 1954, and continues to live and work in Panamá.
Painter and poet
Of his academic studies in Florence and in Mexico, Raúl Vásquez is most influenced by the Mexican School and especially by Tamayo and Toledo, particularly in that vision of Man and Land nourishing and taking root together, which is a characteristic of Mexican Art and has become the axis of Raúl Vásquez’s thematic structures.
Initially exhibiting expressionist values, his later works have moved toward a more defined and unique style in which perspectives are eliminated and the composition consists of superimposed planes defined by intense, rather dark colors, and in which its figures, geometrically cut, of primitive style, and whose mysterious and fantastic suggestions make his work a lyric collection of poetry, are inscribed almost drifting against the background.
Characterized also by techniques derived through intense research on materials and textures, the works of Vásquez are both technically innovative and thematically disturbing, through their unity among colors, textures and movement which, added to the suggestions of his figures creates not only messages of spiritual values, but religious as well, where land and nature are the sources of his themes.
Considered the master of what has been called the
Azuero School”, Vásquez has had a long and definite influence among the group of Panamanian artists educated at the Chitre School of Fine Arts. Vásquez has provided these artists, all born in provinces away from the capital city, not only with technical guidance but he has also encouraged them through their reading and through working outdoors and near the sea in group sessions to search deeper in nature to paint and experiment with natural materials, especially the kinds of textures which invariably occupy the intricate backgrounds of his own works. Vasquez himself lives in a remote area in Los Santos Province, avoiding the art circles of Panamá City, and he has encouraged his students toward a more pure ideal of art, and away from the easy commercialism of the city.
Dedicated to chamanismo (shamanism), Vásquez brings to his work a certain halo of mystery and fascination with the unknown, all evident in his figures which, stylized and of a primitive cut, levitate among diverse textures and chromatic planes. This mysterious and lyrical essence of his roots and of his spirituality is also present in his two works of published poetry:
Profound” and
In your Anonymous Skin”, which corroborates the subjective values of his pictorial work.
Angela de Picardi
Prada Gallery is open from Tuesday through Saturday from 11:00 am - 6:00pm , and Mondays by appointment only. It is located in the heart of Georgetown in Washington DC, at 1030 Wisconsin Ave., NW .