This was the first article to break in Guadalajara. You will notice that where MG's full name was used we have changed it back to MG.
Guadalajara Reporter, June 2, 2001:
US artist to launch career June 8
By Jeanne Chaussee
Few are able to burst into the art world with their own exhibition at a reputable gallery a mere three years after picking up a brush for the first time.
However, this is exactly the case with U.S. painter MG, who will officially launch her professional career as an artist with a show opening Friday, June 8, 8:30 p.m. at Galeria Arte Moderno de Guadalajara.
MG has the confidence to sign her paintings with two simple initials, and expects those initials to suffice as a name ("M" for short) for those who address her or write about her. Unlike those who labor for years (do any starve in garrets anymore?) knowing their entire lives that they are destined to paint, Mg's immersion into painting came more like a bolt from the blue.
Born in Providence, Rhode Island, she graduated from Simon's Rock College of Bard in Massachusetts with a degree in political science. She operated her own graphics design business for four years, often working 60 hour weeks. She admits that as her best efforts at drawing amounted to badly executed stick figures, painting had never occurred to her. One fateful day, she followed an urge to pick up a paint brush. Moving the paint around felt so good that she began to find bits of time to experiment with it, often no more than a couple of hours a week. The excitement that comes to some upon discovering the limitless means of expression available to the painter began to consume her. She sold her business, moved to Mexico in 1999 and became a full-time painter.
Painting only in the natural light on her seaside verandah in Melaque, M uses her imagination, memories from travel, models, dreams and social issues for subject matter. Her style runs the gamut from pure abstract to hyper-realistc and always with compelling drama.
Her exhibition June 8, "Las Momias de Guanajuato," was inspired by her visit to see the world famous mummies and her search to understand what the essence of each of them might have been in life. While painting them, she began to recognize living counterparts among her friends. Each of the six paintings of the mummies is coupled with a portrait of a living counterpart, one of them herself being hung by a noose.
Accompanying the mummies are Mexican landscapes appropriate to the subject matter. Rather than painting decoration, M strives to capture moments, so that even pictures of land forms have underlying social or humanistic significance.
The exhibit will be mounted until June 30. Galeria de Arte Moderno de Guadalajara is located at Mariano Otero 375, a block from the Niños Heroes Monument at Chapultepec and Niños Heroes. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The telephone number is 3616-3266.
