Art can be a window to a world unlike your own. For a new exhibition at La Grua Center in Stonington, that window is to the Mexican city of Guadalajara.
Titled "Echoes in Motion," the new exhibit features the works of three interdisciplinary artists from Guadalajara that explore themes of nature and memory.
The artists are in Connecticut as part of the Artists in Residence program with the Expressiones Cultural Center, a New London-based non-profit that provides bilingual programming for underserved Latino/Hispanic families and to introduce the non-Latino community to Latin American arts and culture.
According to Expressiones Director José Garaycochea, the program brings artists from around Latin America to serve as ambassadors to their country.
“They are coming to this country to show how diverse the Latino community is, because in general, everybody's trying to put everything in one bag,” Garaycochea said. “It is not that way.”
“Chile [is] completely different than Peru, even though they are neighbors. Chile versus Argentina, completely different, and so on,” he said.
For artists Carlos Garrett, María Vargas, and Verónica Ximénez, their abstract works are an invitation to see the beauty of nature through a Guadalajara lens.
Conceptual art with María Vargas
Among the abstract paintings on traditional canvases, there is one artwork that resembles scientific illustrations of birds on a scroll that measures about 10 feet long. The piece is part of a project by María Vargas called "Fauna."
Vargas is an artist whose work is shaped by the concepts that fascinate her.
“I work under a theme that I investigate and from there, I create what I want to represent,” Vargas said in Spanish. “My research has a lot to do with nature. For me, it’s important to look at our surroundings, that is, at ecology and nature.”
The "Fauna" project is one that hits very close to home for Vargas. It depicts the birds that migrate south to Mexico during the wintertime.
“They rest where I live at Lake Chapala,” Vargas said. “It’s a very important area. Birdwatchers from France and other countries go there to see birds.”
The artwork features printed ink, stamped designs, drawings, and watercolor details. Vargas said she likes to work in layers with different types of mediums.
Those colors and textures are a way of showcasing the beauty that Vargas said she hopes people will be able to see through the artwork in the exhibit.
“I think it’s important, because we want to show what we think is important for us in another country, a little bit far away from here,” Vargas said.
Coming to Connecticut, Vargas said it was an opportunity to not only get to know the art scene here in New England but to also get a sense of what animals she’d find up here that she wouldn’t find back home.
“When I got here, I was surprised to learn about the importance of whales, and I assumed there’d be a bigger presence of bears.” Vargas said. “[Being in Connecticut] was an invitation to investigate what moves here, what you bump into and what animals you care for.”
Audiovisual art with Carlos Garrett
At the exhibit, you will hear the waves of Manzanillo Beach in Mexico, the strumming of a guitar, and the keys of a piano playing over animations of an abstract archipelago, a migrating butterfly, and a scorpion among stars. These are the works of Carlos Garrett.
Garrett is a digital artist with a background in photography, 3D animation, video/audio editing and music scoring. His career started in media and communications, but he turned toward a more artistic path when he met fellow exhibit artist — and now wife — María Vargas.
Garrett started by helping Vargas digitize her artwork, but it later grew into an experiment in which he used his audiovisual skills to bring her mixed media paintings to life.
“I call it ‘digital intervention,’” Garrett said, “because I try to maintain the essence of María’s artwork. In my work, there will always be the original essence of her work, but I try to tell my own story through the digital version with the use of animation, video, and music.”
One example is an animated video called "Monarch Territory." It shows a monarch butterfly’s birth out of the chrysalis, its life flying over abstract silhouettes of different states, and its death.
According to Garrett, the video is born from Varga’s artwork, which she created with a real monarch butterfly that she found deceased while they were on a trip through Michoacán, the mecca for butterfly breeding, in Mexico.
“I imagined that the monarch butterfly, which is a migratory butterfly, was creating her own map,” Garrett said. “As she migrates, she picks up parts of where she travels and through that route, she creates a map that can be imagined, followed and traced."
Though he collaborates artistically with Vargas, Garrett said he doesn’t ask Vargas about her paintings, so she doesn’t influence his interpretation of her artwork and so they both can maintain their own artistic language in their work.
“For example, I never show María the videos until I finish them, so she doesn’t offer her opinions,” Garrett said. “I have my own opinion over the work, my own imagination, my own tools to create these pieces.”
After seeing much success with their work in art spaces and galleries in Guadalajara, Garrett said he’s interested in hearing how his work will be received in a place so far away like Connecticut. He also hopes the exhibit serves as a source of inspiration.
“The exhibit is a small sample of Guadalajara’s art scene,” Garrett said, “to encourage people here to look for artists outside of Connecticut and see what’s being created in places like Guadalajara.”
Multidisciplinary artwork with Verónica Ximénez
The abstract works of Verónica Ximénez invite you to travel through various different landscapes, including a forest, a desert, a lake and a swamp.
Ximénez was the inaugural artist in residence at Expressiones last year. She returned this year for a special September residency to explore a new practice in ceramics. The exhibit features her paintings, the medium that she focused on during her residency in 2024.
Ximénez considers herself a visual artist that likes to bring out texture through mixed media.
“My artwork is created in layers,” Ximénez said. “I'm constantly thinking about how I'm going to texture the work to then create the piece."
One of her pieces explores a "Desert without Humans." At first glance, it can look like a sandy-colored canvas with a big streak of black paint across it.
With a better look, however, Ximénez said you can see how the texture she creates shows the sky, the sunlight, and the heavy weight of the stark black color, done intentionally for the concept behind the artwork.
“This piece was created for the theme of immigration,” Ximénez said. “Although it doesn’t show an actual immigrant, it does represent that place where many immigrants have to cross, which suddenly becomes a desert where you only see sand and darkness.”
Though some pieces explore heavy concepts, Ximénez said artwork allows the viewer to take a step back from the reality of those themes.
“Maybe that’s why we do this kind of art, because we need to [get] out of the violence in our country,” Ximénez said. “You know, the immigration, the people who are crossing [the border], the narcotrafficking and everything around [us]. I think art is the only thing that can [get us] out of all of this [in the] world.”
Art is also a way to connect with others, Ximénez said, because of how universal it is.
“A person from here can perfectly connect with art that is being created in another part of the world,” Ximénez said. “It’s like when you see a dancer … You can see them perform in Russia, in Paris, or New York and realize that it’s the same artist and they are hugging or moving the emotions of a group of people, and I think the artwork we do, does exactly that.”
Learn more
The ‘Echoes in Motion’ exhibition will be open to the public at La Grua Center in Stonington through Oct. 29. The exhibition was put on in collaboration with the Expressiones Cultural Center.
You can find all three artists on social media:
