Through December 28, 2012.
The Coral Gables Museum is currently showcasing Puro: New Works by GUILD Artists in the Anthony R. Abraham Family Gallery. The painters of Guild are Abdiel Acosta, Lu Gold, Todd Eliott Mansa, Yamel Molerio, Vincent Serritella, José Telot, and Jovan Karlo Villalba. All GUILD artists currently live in South Florida, except for Serritella who now lives in Oakland, CA. They are all Miamians and graduates from The New World School of the Arts, where many first met and established friendships before going on to pursue degrees in fine arts at various universities. But most relevant is that they all share a unique artistic philosophy, which is what brings these individuals together as artists.
GUILD was formally established in 2010 at the instigation of art critic and poet, Ricardo Pau-Llosa, who first encountered the work of these artists at an exhibit space in Little Havana. As an art critic and careful observer, Pau-Llosa recognized and articulated the common qualities of the artists’ work, which have helped define these artists as a group and made their message so much stronger. GUILD artists have expressed their unifying ideas and mission in a ten-point statement.
To summarize, GUILD consists of painters who reconnect with art’s long-standing traditions and gladly embrace concepts of originality and craftsmanship, which have been derided by trends of the last few decades. The group is conscious of the irony implicit in their position as rebels who seek to move Art forward precisely by not abandoning craftsmanship, the cult of originality, and other traditions which are central to Western art, and last extolled in Modernism.
The group is pleased to come together and celebrate their second anniversary as a unit at the Coral Gables Museum, bringing new work, and new themes to the world.
Mission Statement: GUILD is a group of individual artists who affirm that:
1) Art is Alive and well and always will be.
2) Art thrives on the power of time-honored skills and the belief in the originality of the individual artist.
3) the work of Art cannot be reduced to a message, and that while Art can broach any subject, it cannot help but be transcendent, ambiguous, and essentially enigmatic.
4) Art which denies skill, originality, and ambiguity is just a one-line joke, a transparent screed, or yet another pathetic and anachronistic attempt to shock—but who?, we wonder.
5) because Art is never about the individual artist—however confessional it might appear to be—the appreciation of its merits should always resist the cult of personality. The work of Art stands alone, as often the artist too must stand alone.
6) the business of Art is a laudable and meritorious contributor to the artist’s wellbeing and the life of our culture, provided it is based on rewarding merit.
7) as individuals and as artists we are indebted to the past—manifested in the history of Art as well as in the particular cultural legacies we have inherited and absorbed as individuals—but that we pay back that debt by making the past live in the transformative and innovative power of our work. We honor the past but do not live in it. We seek the new but are not slaves of novelty.
8) Art without Ideas is worthless.
9) life without Art results in slavery—to states, slogans, greed, and other symptoms of the refusal to reflect actively in the course of everyday existence.
10) we capitalize the first letter of the word Art to honor its importance in our lives as artists and in the Western tradition to which we belong.
Abdiel Acosta was raised in Miami, Florida. He received a BFA in painting from the Maryland Institute Collage of Art. At Maryland he was awarded the Presidential Scholarship, Maryland Institute Scholarship, National Art Honor Society Scholarship, Seymour Mandeldaum, and the William Ferguson Merit Scholarship. His work has been published in the Mystic River Press, Latin Network for the Visual Arts. He has participated in group exhibitions in the Arts Center of South Florida, O & Y Gallery, Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art at the University of Connecticut, Little Haiti Cultural Center, Miami International University of Art and Design, San Carlos Museum, Maryland Institute Collage of Art and New World School of the Arts. Acosta is a full-time art teacher in Miami-Dade County Public Schools since 2005.
T. Eliott Mansa was born and works in Miami, Fl. He is an alumnus of the New World School of the Arts High School. He received a Thalheimer Scholarship to attend the Maryland Institute College of the Arts, receiving his BFA from the University of Florida in 2000. His semi-auto-biographical work exploring familial and socio-political themes through the lens of West African myth and lore has been exhibited at the ArtAfrica Fair during Art Basel week, the David Castillo Gallery in Miami, the African American Museum of the Arts in Deland, Florida, and the Miami International Airport. His work has been published in the Mystic River Press and the Latin Network for the Visual Arts. Currently, Telot has embarked in the profession of a mural painter and is conducting business in Miami where he presently resides. He is a co-founder and member of the group GUILD.
José Luis Telot was born and raised in Miami, Florida and is an alumni of the prestigious New World School of the Arts, an art magnet program, where he studied the visual arts. He is a recipient of numerous awards and scholarships; Honorable Mention, National Endowment of the Arts; Honorable Mention, National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts (NFAA); and Honorable Mention, Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. In 1993, he received a Full-Tuition Scholarship award to continue his fine art studies at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Cleveland, Ohio and continued his studies at New World School of the Arts College in Miami, Florida. From there, Telot has participated in various group exhibitions in galleries spanning the United States – among them, Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art at the University of Connecticut and the Coconut Grove Gallery of Art in Miami, FL.
Jovan Karlo Villalba was raised in Miami, Florida. He is an alumnus of New World School of the Arts in Miami and the Cooper Union School of Art (BFA) in New York City. Villalba began to exhibit his art in 2001. At that time he was working from an art studio located in New York City’s Chelsea Art District. In 2006, Villalba moved his practice to a larger space in Long Island City and continued exhibiting his work in NYC. Over the last decade Villalba has exhibited his work at galleries and art institutions throughout the United States, including in solo exhibitions in New York, California, and Florida. His work has been published worldwide, and was recently featured in biennial exhibitions at the Hollywood Art and Culture Center and at the Queens Museum of Art. Villalba presently lives and works in Miami, FL.
Lu Gold studied fine art at New World School of the Arts and received her BFA in Painting from the Maryland Institute, College of Art in 2000. In 1993, she also spent a semester at Parsons College in Paris studying European painting and art history. She has participated in various group exhibitions at the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery in Miami, the Leonard Tachmes Gallery in North Miami, the Kaptz Artmosphere Gallery in Coral Gables and the Mary Loly Gallery in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Vincent Serritella studied at both the Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland and at the Cooper Union School of Art in NYC where he received his B.F.A. He began his artistic development at the acclaimed high school New World School of the Arts. There, he was surrounded by all disciplines of the arts, developing his sensibility of space and aes
thetics. At The Cooper Union, Vincent was taken under the wing of professor and painter Don Kunz, who in return for assisting him in his studio gave Vincent one on one guidance. Vincent’s paintings are collected nationally and internationally and exhibited in museums and galleries including Nassau County Museum of Art in NYC; The New Puppy Gallery in LA; Demossa Gallery in Laguna Beach, CA; ArtSeen and CGAF Gallery in Miami, FL. and Chateau L’Hospitalet in Narbonne, France.
Yamel Molerio (b. 1971, Havana, Cuba, raised in Miami) received a BFA in painting from the University of Florida-New World School of the Arts in 1995. He also holds a MS in art education from Florida International University (1999). Molerio is a full time art teacher in Miami-Dade County Public Schools since 1996. He has participated in group exhibitions in the Art Center of South Florida, Maxoly Art, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, and Alonso Art gallery, among other venues. Molerio has also curated exhibitions at the Buena Vista Building in Miami’s Design District, in a space donated by Craig Robins and Dacra Development. He is the founding president of the artists’ group GUILD.
Coral Gables Museum
285 Aragon Avenue
Coral Gables, FL 33134
305.603.8067
www.coralgablesmuseum.org
Be the first to comment