Last Show of the Season at Galleria Dante Joseph Guarniere - Galleria Dante
March 19, 2013

Join Galleria Dante on Friday, March 22, from 6:00 until 10:00 pm, for the last show of the season featuring a cocktail reception for the opening exhibition of Brewster Brockmann and Jean-Gabriel Lambert.

Brewster Brockmann

This past summer, when we were approached by Brewster to enter the gallery, we were proud to accept. We had followed his career for some years and were in agreement that he is not only a very talented, well respected artist, but one heck of a nice person.

Brewster came to us from Galeria Pacifico, one of the top Vallarta galleries, where the owner and artist shared a healthy working relationship for more than 12 years. Brockmann came to us after a very successful museum showing at the Ex-Convento del Carmen in Guadalajara from July 5 to August 10, 2012. Unfortunately, due to lack of funding, they didn't publish a catalogue.

One might say that Brewster was born to be an artist, his American mother having met his Mexican father while both were art students at the Rhode Island School of Design. His mother, aunt, brother and a first cousin are currently professional painters and his sister is a photographer, with his father having become an architect in Guadalajara where Brewster was raised.

Family is very important to Brewster, so it is not surprising, if "family life" is also depicted in his paintings. He and his lovely wife Carmen have two young daughters, and his brother who is his neighbor has a young son.

Brewster stands out in many ways as an artist, but one of the most obvious is in the way he is equally proficient at creating paintings and sculptures, many of which have the feeling of ancient pieces in a museum of anthropology. The paintings offer the themes of nature one might expect from an artist living in a jungle setting at the foot of a mountain and next to a river emptying into the ocean 150 yards away.

Titles of the works such as "Torre Cocodrilos," Torre Elefantes," and "Nino con cocodrilo," reflect this interest that started as a boy but was later focused by a BA degree in biology with a minor in botany at Bennington College in Vermont and an MFA in ceramics at Michigan's prestigious Cranbrook Institute followed, where Brewster was a teaching assistant.

Upon graduation he was awarded a fellowship in the Kohler Corporation's Artist in Industry Program, where he was able to use their facilities for fabricating bathtubs and fixtures to create primitive looking monkey figures in cast iron. Two of these are in the permanent collection of the Kohler Museum of Modern art.

After returning to Mexico, Brewster taught workshops to graduate students from Cranbrook Institute and the Rhode Island School of Design to learn the classic techniques he practices, from digging his own clay and forming designs with coils of the clay to firing it in a wood fired adobe kiln he made himself.

Although Brockmann continues with his familiar style, which might be called "stream of consciousness organic expressionism" for lack of a more traditional label, there also seems to be some new directions in style and approach.

Brewster feels that putting more energy into his terracotta and bronze sculptures recently has actually helped his paintings in that they aid him in achieving a proper feeling of scale and inspire new sensibilities in the two dimensional work.

"In my new paintings I've re-introduced saturated color in the background to emphasize negative and positive contrasts among the drawing lines, marks, and brush strokes. The animal towers play with the idea of biological pyramids as a statement for conservation as well as energy ladders that can surpass natural ecosystems."

"Tortuga" a simple line drawing of a woman holding a baby turtle, on a background of red! "Dog Tree" is reminiscent of a Egyptian warrior, half dog, half tree on a background of vibrant yellow. As he points out, "It's all intermingled with my tendency to let the paintings evolve as I do them rather than do a lot of pre-planning that can actually restrict the spontaneity that is an important part of the creative process for me."

Animals and marine life continue to be very present as themes and elements in Brewster's work, with alligators, jaguars, dolphins and fish being in evidence, among others. It also relates to Brockmann´s interest in indigenous folk art and ceremonial masks, most of whom portray animals. Although this interest started as a young child tagging along with an uncle who collected, his passion eventually ended up being manifested in the form of owning and operating a folk art gallery in Puerto Vallarta, the highly regarded Galeria Olinala.

Visit Brewster on Facebook.

Jean-Gabriel Lambert

Born in Montreal, Canada, Jean-Gabriel first came into the public eye through acting and dance. When voice technique developed, his imagination took free rein.

He directed a video in which he played two characters who confront one another. Later, he added writing and singing to his artistic accomplishments and soon after, in a natural progression, he began drawing and painting.

The future of humanity and our relationship with the other provide his creative motivation. Love, friendship and communication are both bearers of meaning and the impetus to act. Again and again, his canvases interweave intimate stories and universal issues. We imagine ourselves floating above an immense landscape, and at the same time, we see a wound on a body.

The paint is laid on densely, darkly, with blues the color of night bordering with beaches, like waves of serenity. The human form is never very far away. An entire series was painted in honor of his mother, Madeleine. Another series from the views of Conchas Chinas.

The human form is never very far away. Often, figures insinuate themselves into the paintings, taking shape through the abstract gestural flux. Figurative images rise to the surface: here we see a mouth and there, a body...leaving the work open and in movement.

A canvas never has a single meaning when seen through the eyes of others, it lives and it grows. His artistic expression continues to emerge and assert itself as he moves forward in life.

The dialogue with the public provoked by his paintings nurtures him and gives him the desire to open it ever further through his art.

The artistic journey that he embarked upon twenty-five years ago has led him around the word in a quest for inspiration. In 1999, he fell in love with the Mexican people during his initial visit to Vallarta, and for the first time added the color yellow into his work. He continues to be inspired by the light and colors of its spectacular natural environment and its' people.

He now paints here on his annual pilgrimages to Vallarta. He celebrates his 11th year at Galleria Dante.

Visit Jean-Gabriel on Facebook.

Galleria Dante will remain open our regular hours till June 1st, after that by appointment till October 1st. We are available all summer, so do not hesitate to call or email for an appointment!

Galleria Dante is located in Old Town Vallarta at Basilio Badillo #269, telephone is (322) 222-2477 or by cellular at 044-322-109-0837. To view works prior to the event, visit Galleria Dante.