Edmundo Font

Edmundo Font (Tampico, 23/06/1953) is a latecomer to the plastic arts, having first excelled as a writer and poet. His longstanding achievements in literature, however, have always been inspired by artistic creation. He has dealt with the theme of painting ever since the publication of his first piece, Otra vez Guernica (Guernica Revisited) by Ediciones Metfora in 1973. More recent works include El dedo de Cratilo (Cratylus' Finger) which appeared in the Cuadernos de Malinalco Collection (1998), and Cascada de azul desierta (Blue Desert Waterfall), published by the Autonomous Metropolitan University (2002), with illustrations by the artist Gilberto Aceves Navarro. Font began to paint after passing through a solitary preparatory process, with no instruction in the academies or studios of master artists. He mastered photographic composition, collage, installations, and went on to work with materials that have enabled him to produce works using mixed techniques and acrylics on wood and canvas. Font is an outsider who is acquainted with the artistic traditions of seven countries on the four continents where he has lived for 25 years. The experience of being immersed in cultural traditions so dissimilar as those of India, Italy, Brazil, and Egypt is reflected in his intensive daily work. Intermittently, he makes forays into the iconography of the great masters in art history (such as Velsquez or Goya) and contemporary authors of the stature of Giacometti, Pollock, Rothko, Matisse, Picasso, Bacon, Tapies, Tamayo, and Soulage, yet he never forsakes more traditional styles, from landscapes and seascapes to erotic nudes, with a particular inclination towards figurative tendencies. We venture to say that Font totally immerses himself in a laboratory, more so than in an atelier, thereby propitiating the evolution of works that never fall into repetitive patterns or commercial fads. Drawing is a constant in his work methods; he starts out from sketches and then goes on to modify them almost completely. If truth be told, he allows the media itself and the aqueous action of the materials to determine the finished product. His process has been rigorously documented. At least 200 of his most recent works have been photographed, starting with the preparation of the canvas; this makes it possible to follow the sequence of master strokes that capture an idea, and the result is a fundamental transformation of the initial proposal. ORIGINSFont has confessed that he ventured to experiment with new creative languages upon absorbing the critical concerns raised by Marcel Duchamp regarding an overemphasis on the retinal dimension of painting. And he saw no contradiction between the historic formulations of the "large glass" artist and his freedom to express himself through a radical approach towards painting different worlds. Robert Rauschemberg's work was also a formative influence. Font not only shares an affinity for extremely diverse multi-media languages with the North American painter, but also the sui generis influence of an environment in which a certain aesthetic vision has gravitated from the febrile climate of the petrochemical industry. Like Rauschemberg, who was born in Port Arthur, Texas, Font came from a port city on the Gulf of Mexico, Ciudad Madero, where oil refineries abound. Other decisive moments in Font's drive to penetrate pictorial space are rooted in Francis Bacon's views on art. One of these had an enormous impact on him: the technical lessons that the great British painter had learned in school were not useful to him in his artistic career. In other words, Bacon postulates that it is not always necessary to study in an academy in order to be an artist. Bacon and Gauguin are both late-blooming artists who held a powerful fascination for Font, given that he decided to take up painting at the age of 50 and has experimented continuously since then. He tends to accentuate the word "experiment" because he, like the great poet Antonio Machado (CAMINANTE NO HAY CAMINO/ SE HACE CAMINO AL ANDAR -Walker, there is no path,the path is made when walking-), believes that this is the only way to open the doors to contemporary art.

OUTSIDER EDMUNDO FONT'S SOLO SHOWS Imgenes Tendidas (A Spread of Images). Collage on wooden boxes, photographs, and a reproduction of Gandhi's room in his Ashram at Delhi.Convent Museum and Center of Historical Documentation at Tepoztln, Morelos. December 2001-January 2002. Luz y Aire de la India (The Light and Air of India). A large-scale photographic installation, with photos printed on the sheer silky fabric known as French tergal, and attached with wooden clothespins to a clothesline suspended between bamboo poles. Public spaces. Plazas and avenues in Mexico City, including the atrium of the Santo Domingo Cathedral, the Plaza Francisco Primo de Verdad, the Tlatelolco subway station, the Monument to the Mother, and lvaro Obregn Avenue. April-December 2002. Nunca Ms (Never Again). Collage. 11 boxes. Cement blocks, tools, typewriters, computer chips, simulated animals, and other objects. 111cm x 111cm, with 366 X 244 cm triptych. Convent Museum and Center of Historical Documentation at Tepoztln, Morelos. December 2002-January 2003. Luz y Aire de la India (The Light and Air of India). Large-scale acrylic on canvas, with photographs printed on transparent cloth. These are the first paintings exhibited by Font.Museum of Anthropology at Xalapa, Veracruz.September and October 2003, extended until November of the same year. Irak. Painting. Mixed technique on wood. La Cerera Cultural Center, Tlayacapan, Morelos.August-October, 2004. Prestige. Painting. Mixed technique on wood.Jos Mara Morelos y Pavn Museum.August-October, 2004. 11 de septiembre (September 11). Collage. This is the same exhibition mounted in the Ex Convent of Tepoztln and the Gandhi Bookstore in Mexico City.The Revolucin del Sur Museum, the former headquarters of Emiliano Zapata's Revolution of the South, Tlaltizapn, Morelos.August-October, 2004. Katastrophe. Painting and Installation. Mixed technique and acrylic on canvas A combination of the three former exhibitions, with additional sequences dedicated to the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean and the tortures of Abu Ghraib, a total of more than seventy works. Diego Rivera , David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Benito Jurez exhibition halls of the Borda Garden, Cuernavaca, Morelos. February-March 2005. Pal invita a Font (Pal Invites Font). Painting. Large-scale format, belonging to several different series, one of which is dedicated to Francis Bacon. Acrylic on canvas.Pal Kepenyes Gallery, Acapulco, Guerrero.March-April 2005. Font en la Baha de Santa Luca (Font at Santa Luca Bay). Painting. Acrylic on canvas and mixed technique. 30 works never before exhibited.Casona de Jurez, Acapulco City Hall, Department of Culture.October-November 2005, extended to January, 2006. Font a mar abierto (Font on the High Seas). Painting. Acrylic on canvas. 30 works not previously exhibited. The Fairmont Pierre Marques Hotel, in Acapulco, Guerrero. December 2005. Homenaje a Rimbaud (Homage to Rimbaud). Installation. Painting on both sides of three 12-meter-high sails. A reconditioned, 30-foot sailboat anchored at the central wharf at Manzanillo Beach. Yacht Club (on its 50th anniversary). Acapulco, Guerrero.December 2005-March, 2006. Font en la galera Dolores Olmedo (Font at the Dolores Olmedo Gallery) Anthology exhibition of his paintings. Acrylic on canvas. International Convention Center. Acapulco, Guerrero.January-March, 2006. El Barco Ebrio (The Drunken Boat). Exhibition inspired by Arthur Rimbaud's poem, "Bateau Ivre." Mural measuring 45 square meters, canvas and wood. Acrylic on canvas and mixed technique. Participation in the Third French Festival. Dolores Olmedo Gallery, International Convention Center. Acapulco, Guerrero.April-May, 2006. Homenaje a Rimbaud (Homage to Rimbaud). Acrylic on sails painted on both sides and exhibited in front of a sailboat anchored at the Yacht Club. Vestibule of the El Cano Hotel, during the inauguration of the Third French Festival in Acapulco, Guerrero.April 7, 2006. Edmundo Font al sur (Edmundo Font in the South). 44 works. Acrylic on canvas from three series Umbria, Desnudos en rosa (Nudes in Pink), and Mar de Candombl (Sea of Candomble), as well as other miscellaneous works painted in 2005 and 2006. Museum of History, Tlalpan. June/July 2006. Font al sur (Font in the South). 44 works. Acrylic on canvas from the series Umbria, Desnudos en rosa (Pink Nudes), and Mar de Candombl (Sea of Candomble), as well as other miscellaneous works painted in 2005 and 2006. November 25 to December 11, 2006 (Silver Fair). Galleries in the Borda House, Taxco, Guerrero, Mxico. Edmundo Font en el Hudson (Edmundo Font on the Hudson). The Iron Tree G

Future Shows: "GUERNICA'S" in the LXXX anniversary of the Picassos mural. Grand Gallery, Culture Center in Acapulco, Mexico, October-November.