By Barbara Poole
Bordello Galeria will again be hosting Morelian artist Ruben Morales with an exhibit of his nostalgic paintings of Mexican campo life. An artist reception will be held on Saturday, January 22 from 6-8pm. Sr. Morales will be on hand to greet patrons.
Morales has been a long-time favorite at Casa de la Noche, where his works are featured in many of the common areas and historic sleeping rooms. This event will mark the 11th year for the Bordello Galeria has been designated as Morales’ primary venue.
Barbara Poole, the exhibit organizer, first became interested in Morales’s work in the Nineties and has since collected many of his oil and acrylic paintings. These works now grace many of the guest rooms at Casa de la Noche, a boutique-style Bed and Breakfast focusing on the romance of ‘Old Mexico’.
Though seemingly naïve, these paintings of typical Mexican figures and street scenes may seem simple at first, but Morales’ use of rich, contrasting colors, light, and texture reveal a more complex and intentional piece of art.
“I try to create a feeling or emotion, not just a picture,” says Morales. He does this through faceless subjects in everyday situations; a woman selling flowers, an old man walking with a cane or a girl washing clothes. Mood is evoked through posture, composition, and color, applied in broad strokes with a pallet knife or brush.
A former student of Morelia’s Bellas Artes, Morales says he rejected most of the traditional art education and learned from other painters he met. He works from his memory and imagination, remembering everyday life in Mexico in a nostalgic way.
Morales esteems Diego Rivera as his favorite influence, but only his subject matter and color pallet reflects Rivera’s style. Both pay tribute to the common man and woman, but Morales’ gestural works are technically looser and more flowing than Rivera’s, and the tone is less strident.
In the past, Morales sold his work in artisan’s markets, on the streets, and through galleries in Mexican beach towns. He has been noticed by American collectors over the years and has had exhibitions in Tucson and Phoenix Arizona, Florida, and New York. He has traveled to Uruguay with his paintings and won a Parisian Painters award when one
of his pieces was entered anonymously by a patron. Bordello Galeria continues to be honored as the official venue for Morales’ exhibitions.
Bordello Galeria is so named because of its location on the walls of a house where “ladies of the night” once made their way. It now takes up several rooms of this reinvented hospitality center, Casa de La Noche.
Bordello Galeria and Casa de la Noche are located at Organos 19, Centro, 1/2 block off Hernandes Macias in San Miguel de Allende.
Social distancing and masks requested.
Art Exhibit
“Looking Back“
By Ruben Morales
Sat, Jan 22, 6-8pm
Bordello Galeria
Organos 19, Centro
