Photos and audio by Mauro Whiteman
Paintings, photographs, sculptures, jewelry, body-painted models and music filled the Crescent Ballroom Friday night for an art show to kick off Art Detour 24.
The show, “Celebrating Beauty, an Artist Perspective,” featured 20 local artists as well as jewelers and body painters.
The show was a collaboration between Hugo Arts, Xico and Cuervo Studios, said Donna Valdes, executive director of Xico.
Hugo Medina, who helped organize the show, said the point of the show was to find out what is beauty and each artist had a different interpretation of beauty and used different styles to express it.
About four months ago, after Medina asked artists what beauty is and how to celebrate it, he started receiving pictures of unfinished paintings and sculptures from interested artists. Every piece had to be made specifically for this show.
“There’s such a cliche as to what beautiful is,” he said.
One interpretation of beauty was a series of paintings made with acrylic paints, Sharpies and crayons by FX Tobin. He created three paintings that combined the Frankenstein monster and the Naked Maja by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya.
He found the woman and the monster beautiful and he was inspired by how he felt when he himself was still dating – a monster around beautiful woman.
“Love is the greatest perception of beauty,” said Martin Moreno, director of Cuervo Studios. “The passion, the anger, whatever it invokes in your soul. That’s creativity. That’s what it’s all about.”
An oil painting called “Balance” by Anthony Galto showed his interpretation of beauty with an abstract portrayal of the human body.
Although many people find Photoshopped glamor shots in magazines as beautiful, the natural body is beautiful even with aging, scarring and other blemishes, Galto said.
During the show, three body-painted women mingled in the crowd while three more models were painted live.
“The show is about celebrating beauty and art. The feminine form is part of celebrating beauty,” body painter Matt Brown said.
Brown’s style of painting was a mixture of the traditional tribal style of painting and tattoo tribal art. Body painting is different from canvas painting because he’s working with a three-dimensional aspect and someone who moves around.
It took about an hour for Brown to paint his first model, April Anne. She said it was a lot of fun to be a living, moving piece of art.
Tim Bork, a guest at the performance, didn’t know there was an art show at the Crescent Ballroom. He was sitting outside eating dinner when he realized there were paintings hung up.
“Art is beauty by default,” Bork said. “But all the pieces are of women or by women. They’re elegant. Women are more elegant.”
The show was a specialty show, which displayed the difference in inspiration by heritage, said Robert Booker, executive director of the Arizona Commission on the Arts.
“I think there’s a very nice variety of art, styles and mediums, which is exciting to see,” Booker said. “It demonstrates the rich variety of artists in Arizona.”
The partnership between a nonprofit organization, artists and a for-profit restaurant worked well to draw in people who would not normally come to an art show but will probably continue to come back, Booker said.
The event was free, but donations will benefit the Sojourner Center through art and jewelry sales. The Sojourner Center is a shelter for victims of domestic violence.
Every show he does has a charity involved, Medina said.
“If we’re celebrating beauty, what’s more beautiful than something that gives back?” said Medina.
Xico and Cuervo studios are organizations that promote Chicano and Native American arts.
Valdes approached Medina with the idea for the show. Initially, the show was for female artists, but it opened up to any artist.
“Everyone has a different interpretation of beauty. Why not open it to everyone?” Medina said.
Valdes, based in Chandler, wanted to bring the show downtown to provide a new audience to its artists and to get involved with the arts culture in Phoenix.
“Downtown is almost like an open canvas,” Medina said. “You go to any major city and everything is done or is being done. The beauty of downtown is that there’s so much energy.”
A group of artists in New York judged the submissions for the show because Medina and Valdes wanted stay impartial to the submissions, Valdes said.
“Collaboration is necessary, especially in this day,” Moreno said. “We had to find alternative means to bring arts to the masses. If we don’t do it, no one else is going to do it. It’s healthy. Any community needs an aesthetic expression to view our conscience. To view who we are.”
Contact the reporter at mlongdon@asu.edu
