Mythmakers Art Show at the Cafe' Mestizo (Pilsen in Chicago)

(photo credit: Eulalio Fabie de Silva and Michael Patrick Silva, 14)

Mythmakers Art Show

Pilsen, the sound of it sounds like a good beer.  Actually it is the good ole' Mexican-American community it's been a cultural hub known for its influx of galleries giving rise to a bustling Chicago Art District...it's a shame that being a Chicagoan and artist who emigrated here in the late 80s, it was actually my first time to meander around the area and actually stop.  Cafe Mestizo was the host of our show entitled Mythmakers at 1738 W. 18th Street, just west of the CTA's pink stop.   Leo, the proprietor of Cafe' Mestizo actually offered me my first Cafe' Azteca.  My new bragging rights for what I call "Chocoffee"...

Curated by noted Chicago artist and curator Teresa J. Parker of Benedictine University since 2005, she asked me to  be a part of this eclectic show.   Works being featured here are from well-shown local and international photographers and printmaker and fortunate to be among them as the lone painter. 

Teresa Parker's works show sensitive figurative drawings pertaining to women's breasts as she incorporate what she calls "Milagros" as artistic prayers...Beatrice K. Turner whose powerful and evocative black and whites of self-portrait from her own pinhole camera...John Sevigny's works selections from his 'El Muerto Pare el  Santo' (figurative) and  from his formal 'Circles' photography series hinting socio-politico-spiritual concerns from the war-torn Mexico...Guillermo Medina Ramos' exploration of the male body (his own) in rich black and white representing as one of Mexico's brightest and upcoming photographer...Henri Augusto Mandujano Rojas' photographic abstractions exploring existentialists' and symbolists' sensibilities from Mexico...and last but not least is Susana Veloz's photographs of photography of collages of torn photos with formal and popular images forming powerful images evoking haunting and subjects reflecting her homeland, Mexico.

The opening show (Feb 3) show went on until the wee hours of the night, that's when it became alive with rhythms from this local band named KARPAH while Leo's son Diego (12) can be seen showing his skills as he play his Diabolo (like a spinning top with sticks and strings)...friendly people just chilling and enjoying Friday night.  Many browsing the arts, checking the internet on the lone computer on the desktop by the bar area...

Ah...Pilsen.  Better than a beer I supposed.  It's just good to be here with the locals listening to each other's stories as the dim lighted but enticing ambiance of Cafe' Mestizo boasts of urbanity, coffee and of course, art.

These works will adorn Cafe Mestizo's brick and wood paneled walls until March 15.

For more information on the Mythmakers show, please contact Teresa J. Parker (art curator) at:
tparker43318@yahoo.com or Eulalio Fabie de Silva at: efdesilva@gmail.com

Waiting To Meditate X (triptych) – Work-In-Progress

                                 photo credits to:  Michael Patrick Silva and Roseanne Silva

Waiting To Meditate X (triptych) – work-in-progress (114" x 46")

As the solo show at Benedictine University show nears (Feb 10 – Kindlon Hall in Lisle, IL) the very thought of nudity looms within me.  My son Michael (14) asked me while documenting photographically with a quizzical look:  "Why the nude?"

I responded candidly and simply with "Purity!".  Let alone the very subject of the painting may seemed confrontational, but it is his mother Roseanne.  I've obviously painted her "undressed" while she was fully clothed last summer from our photo session in our backyard.

But back to "purity" – it was coincidental that wife Roseanne started her tai chi and meditations last summer that led me to be intrigued by the very thought of painting her.  She obviously no longer waits to meditate but it is still fitting that she becomes the model of my paintings. (making a series).

Michael still befuddled but his curiosity sufficed when I iterated something about ourselves being "disrobed" when we meditated.  "Going back to our primordial selves without the frivolities and superficialities".  Ok, he was further provoked to think then understood with a simple: "Ah!"

Those heads on the left side of the paintings were actually mannequin heads inspired from Mieke Zuiderweg's (a noted Chicago photographer) living room where I have taken pictures from when I visited her late last year....

It all came together in this composite of a painting...hoping that it won't be too provocatively nude for a Catholic establishment such as Benedictine University.  In here, I await also...not to meditate perhaps but to see where this would lead me to.

"Why the nude?"  - ah, that question still will be asked again for sure.

Art Curator and Benedictine Art Professor Teresa J. Parker can be reached at: tparker@ben.edu

Details and announcements will be posted here as well as facebook (add Fabie de Silva).
De Silva can also be reached at 773.844.3518 and email: efdesilva@gmail.com
www.fabiedesilva.com

"Meditations on The Figure" – Benedictine University (Kindlon Hall) February 10

72" x 48" - Waiting to Meditate XII  - Photo credit:  Michael Patrick Silva (14 years old)

Waiting to Meditate -
To "meditate" is an oxymoron nowadays wherein our time is dominated with work, chores to do, errands and computers.  Who would have the time and much less learn it?  These series have been inspiring Eulalio Fabie de Silva to paint a series of visual parodies as well as in investigation of oneself on the issue of meditation.

This seminal piece shown is 72" x 48" debutting ARTVerAcitY with Eulalio Fabie de Silva's Works-In-Progress leading towards his one-man exhibition dubbed as "Meditations on the Figure" at Benedictine University in Lisle, IL – February 10 - April 27.

Art Curator and Benedictine Art Professor Teresa J. Parker can be reached at: tparker@ben.edu

Details and announcements will be posted here as well as facebook (add Fabie de Silva).
De Silva can also be reached at 773.844.3518 and email: efdesilva@gmail.com
www.fabiedesilva.com