Blog
< Back To Blog List
Trip To Mexico Inspires Discussion on Two Artistsby Mitchell Kahan, CEO and DirectorArtists: Anado McLauchlin and Daniela Edburg |
My winter vacation turned into an interesting art experience in Mexico’s San Miguel de Allende. Once a decaying colonial town, by the middle of the twentieth century it had become a thriving arts colony. Its relationship with the United States was cemented in the years following World War II, when art schools in San Miguel made arrangements to take payments for soldiers completing their education on the GI Bill. By 1950, it was fast becoming a gathering place for culturally oriented Americans of modest means.
Long after the GI Bill influx ended, the town continues to attract expatriates, particularly Canadians and Americans looking for warmer winters, cheaper living expenses and a simpatico group of people interested in literature, native craft and modern art. If real estate was once affordable, that is no longer true; luxury developments and the occasional suburban golf course are now making an appearance. A UNESCO world heritage site, San Miguel is the real Mexico’s version of the American Santa Fe, with snowbirds in the winter and big-haired Texans with their big trucks in the summer – and lots of art year-round.
Two artists I discovered deserve special mention: Anado McLauchlin (www.madebyanado.com) (best viewed in Firefox) and Daniela Edburg (www.danielaedburg.net) .
Anado is an American who has lived in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area. He settled in a tiny hamlet outside San Miguel about ten years ago, and his creative approach is perfect for a country where nothing is wasted. Old doors, bottles, stones, photos, trinkets, all make an appearance in his colorful art. He is unburdened by distinctions between painting, sculpture, craft and architecture…or abstraction and figurative art. A fireplace and a floor are just as likely to receive his attention as a wall or pedestal. His property is itself a work of art, with new structures underway, each with inventive means of decoration incorporated into the structure. Any constructed form is a possible item for expression. Calling himself an “insider-outsider artist,” his unique working environment may be physically remote, but it has been featured in The New York Times.
At the other end of the aesthetic spectrum is Daniela Edburg, a generation younger than Anado. Born in Houston and raised in San Miguel, she studied art in Mexico City. She produces staged photographs that are right at home in current international art dialogue. Her satirical series on myriad ways of death has been exhibited widely (my favorite shows her fleeing across a field as an atomic cloud of cotton candy rises behind her). Her new work may be her best, where she depicts herself in different situations, always in conjunction with knitted forms that she has made by hand. An unexploded knitted bomb pokes out of the earth in one image. Something resembling Miss Havisham’s dining room table, knitted in white, appears in another photo. A third shows Daniela knitting, strands of pink yarn flying out of control, swirling around her like an octopus-armed dervish.
As different as Anado and Daniela may be in their visual expression, I enjoyed their work equally and wondered why. It dawned on me that they both reveal an amazing sense of humor, ranging from silliness to mock horror. A sense of wonder and involvement in the world underlies their work, not the affected and distanced irony typical of so much contemporary art shown in New York and sought after by international collectors. Both artists seem to be greatly enjoying their lives, and that attitude is reflected in their art. You can’t help but respond enthusiastically to that.
Long after the GI Bill influx ended, the town continues to attract expatriates, particularly Canadians and Americans looking for warmer winters, cheaper living expenses and a simpatico group of people interested in literature, native craft and modern art. If real estate was once affordable, that is no longer true; luxury developments and the occasional suburban golf course are now making an appearance. A UNESCO world heritage site, San Miguel is the real Mexico’s version of the American Santa Fe, with snowbirds in the winter and big-haired Texans with their big trucks in the summer – and lots of art year-round.
Two artists I discovered deserve special mention: Anado McLauchlin (www.madebyanado.com) (best viewed in Firefox) and Daniela Edburg (www.danielaedburg.net) .
Anado is an American who has lived in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area. He settled in a tiny hamlet outside San Miguel about ten years ago, and his creative approach is perfect for a country where nothing is wasted. Old doors, bottles, stones, photos, trinkets, all make an appearance in his colorful art. He is unburdened by distinctions between painting, sculpture, craft and architecture…or abstraction and figurative art. A fireplace and a floor are just as likely to receive his attention as a wall or pedestal. His property is itself a work of art, with new structures underway, each with inventive means of decoration incorporated into the structure. Any constructed form is a possible item for expression. Calling himself an “insider-outsider artist,” his unique working environment may be physically remote, but it has been featured in The New York Times.
At the other end of the aesthetic spectrum is Daniela Edburg, a generation younger than Anado. Born in Houston and raised in San Miguel, she studied art in Mexico City. She produces staged photographs that are right at home in current international art dialogue. Her satirical series on myriad ways of death has been exhibited widely (my favorite shows her fleeing across a field as an atomic cloud of cotton candy rises behind her). Her new work may be her best, where she depicts herself in different situations, always in conjunction with knitted forms that she has made by hand. An unexploded knitted bomb pokes out of the earth in one image. Something resembling Miss Havisham’s dining room table, knitted in white, appears in another photo. A third shows Daniela knitting, strands of pink yarn flying out of control, swirling around her like an octopus-armed dervish.
As different as Anado and Daniela may be in their visual expression, I enjoyed their work equally and wondered why. It dawned on me that they both reveal an amazing sense of humor, ranging from silliness to mock horror. A sense of wonder and involvement in the world underlies their work, not the affected and distanced irony typical of so much contemporary art shown in New York and sought after by international collectors. Both artists seem to be greatly enjoying their lives, and that attitude is reflected in their art. You can’t help but respond enthusiastically to that.
