Nineteen-year-old El Pasoan Leo Aguirre’s passion is film and it’s taking him around the world.
Aguirre was chosen from a highly competitive group of global filmmakers for the 2014 Cannes Film Festival in May. His short film El Fuego Detras will be screening as part of a cream-of-the-crop showcase at one of the world’s largest and most respected celebrations of cinema.
In its 16-minute running time, El Fuego Detras follows a suicidal writer whose life becomes entangled with that of a young immigrant girl when an unexpected crime is committed. The film is set in El Paso and was shot over one weekend in late January.
“We worked extremely quickly. It was kind of like trying to run on water,” Aguirre said. He had help from local cast and crew, including the film’s co-writer and male lead Brian Ceely, who attends UTEP alongside Aguirre.
“El Fuego Detras is the first short that I’ve helped to create from concept to wrap,” Ceely said. “Leo and I met in December and shared a love of film and art, so we decided to write and shoot this film together. We both wrote it, and while he took on the role of director and editor, I acted in it and I drew the storyboards. It was a truly collaborative experience.”
Having spent childhood weekends watching movies with his grandparents—a tradition he proudly continues—Aguirre zeroed in on film as the outlet for his artistic expression. He made his first short film when he was just 16 during a summer digital filmmaking workshop in his temporary Caribbean homeland.
Under his production company banner Novum Indie Films, Aguirre has completed three short films to date, including El Fuego Detras and Back of Beyond. His previous short film Siblings scored an audience award at the 2013 Cine las Americas International Film Festival.
For this young, hard-working film lover, it means the world to have been hand-picked to show his work among the best of the best at Cannes.
“If last year someone had told me that I would be attending the festival this year, I would not have believed him or her,” Aguirre said. “Cannes is the one of the world’s most prestigious festivals, so being able to attend at my age is a great privilege.”
To read more about Leo Aguirre pick up a copy of The Art Avenue.
Mercedes Lopez is an 18-year-old working illustrator and full-time French student at UTEP. She spends her time studying, painting, and participating in art markets and gallery shows.
Gunshots fired in a car seen from outside, a small group of people disguised in paper mache masks of monstrous figures surrounding a bleeding Mexican police officer, piles of cocaine casually lying around a nightclub: these are the kind of images that make up the scenes in the show pilot of Gray Area, produced by local company DoubleScope Films.
Gray Area crewmembers work on motel scene.
But Gray Area writer and director Luis Ruiz said he has no intention of glorifying such atrocities through these images. Instead, his intentions are to reveal the horrific consequences that result from political and social corruption.
The story follows the life of ex-drug dealer Roldie Flores, who loses his family and career as a videographer for a mayoral candidate when his past is revealed. Pressured by a longtime friend and drug dealer to do business for him in Juarez, he reluctantly agrees to do so in order to get out of his financial rut, reopening the doors to danger with a cartel leader named “Little Man.”
The name Gray Area symbolizes a few different points that Ruiz intends to make in his show.
“El Paso and Juarez form a single identity, a gray area,” said Ruiz. “There is also a gray area where political connections trump the rule of law, such as the United States giving immunity to HSBC Bank after they were caught laundering billions of dollars for the cartels. Yet low-level drug dealers who are caught with an ounce of crack are subject to 25 or 30 years in prison.”
Some have told Ruiz that his show might come off as cliché since many films have attempted to portray violent crimes and drug trafficking along the U.S.-Mexico border, but he made a few points claiming why this story will provide more authenticity.
Ruiz said the pilot itself received positive reviews when it premiered at the South by Southwest festival in March, Ruiz said. He intends to shop Gray Area to NBC Universal and El Rey Network.
To read more on Gray Area pick up a copy of The Art Avenue at Kipp’s Cheesesteak in Downtown El Paso.
For artist, professor and jeweler Rachelle Thiewes, the Chihuahuan Desert is beaming with inspiration.
“The light here is really fascinating – at times it’s so warm and soothing and seductive, and at other times it is so strong and sharp and shrieking,” she said, her tangerine glasses contrasting against her blue and purple hair. “And all that can happen within the period of a day.”
Set to retire this month after 37 years of teaching at UTEP, Thiewes sat down with the Art Avenue in her contemporary Upper Valley dwelling to look back on her life’s work. Something Gleams, a retrospective of the artist on display at the Rubin Center, will exhibit work from her entire career.
“I consider myself to be a studio jeweler,” she said. “My work is not commercially oriented, although technically I’m very well versed. I could do commercial jewelry but the work that I do is conceptually based.”
Thiewes began teaching at UTEP in 1976.
“I’ve been running this parallel career since then —where I’ve just been teaching and sort of pouring myself 100 percent into both, between teaching and my studio career,” said Thiewes, head of the metals program in the art department. “It’s time just to do the studio career.”
Thiewes earned a bachelor’s degree in art at the Southern Illinois University in Carbondale in 1974, and then earned her master of fine arts degree from Kent State University in 1976. Thiewes spent her childhood in Minnesota, moving to the outskirts of Chicago when she was in high school. It took some time to find her identity as a jeweler. While in college, Thiewes switched majors twice: from art education to sculpture to metals.
While driving in Downtown El Paso on a Sunday morning in 1976, Thiewes and her husband saw low-riders with hydraulics for the first time.
“I’ve been going to car shows ever since,” she said.
Thiewes’ newest jewelry pieces take advantage of the luminosity of car paints.
“For eight years now, I’ve been working with car paints on steel, and what might be considered high-tech car paints,” Thiewes said. “I’ve been working with candies, chameleons, and pearls —so really those show car types of paints.”
Her latest work is a step away from her longtime study of movement, in which she considered how pieces move when worn, and has become about creating static pieces, she said.
Car paints have depth to them unlike other paints, Thiewes said, which allows the pieces to have a reflective quality unlike any other jewelry.
“They become more architectural, but there is a kinetic quality about them because the paints move,” Thiewes said. “The wearer can just be still, but if somebody walks around them and they’re looking at the piece, they can see the color shifting.”
Read more in the May/June issue of The Art Avenue at The El Paso Museum of Art.
For two nights this April, Puccini’s classic bohemian love story “La Bohème” comes to the Abraham Chavez Theatre for the first time in nearly a decade.
“It’s a very truthful story about kids who go to the big city, Paris in this case, to make their fame and fortune, and find love,” Garbarkewitz said.
The story follows down-on-their-luck lovers Rodolfo and Mimi in 1840s Paris. Their fortuitous meeting comes when Mimi, whose candle has gone out in the stairwell, is aided by Rodolfo’s flame. Hands touch in the darkness and the pair fall in love. However, when Mimi’s incessant coughing can no longer be ignored, Rodolfo worries she will die. In the coldness of a sparse artist’s garret, the young couple find out what love can endure.
The El Paso Opera will bring vocal talent from New York City. Soprano Danielle Walker makes her El Paso debut as Mimi, and emerging young artist Won Whi Choi plays the love-struck poet Rodolfo.
Performances at the Abraham Chavez Theatre April 10th and April 12th
Tickets may be purchased through ticketmaster.com using the code “exclusivo” to receive a discount.
I was born and raised in El Paso and have been drawing from the time I could hold a pencil. Because of my broad interests, I liked reading about various topics including the political goings-ons of government, from the local all the way to the global arena. I was one of those weird kids that actually liked political cartoons.
Rising artist Adriana PERALDI latest exhibition Desde Mi Balcon featured over ten paintings with images designed to provoke emotions. PERALDI’s mission in this series is for the viewer to appreciate the emotions they feel while connecting with the images.
PERALDI says Desde Mi Balcon is a collection of paintings inspired by the view off her balcony in her home in El Paso’s westside. Her show runs through March 17th at Corralito Steakhouse and you can also view more of Adriana PERALDI’S work at her Facebook page: Arte Adriana Peraldi.
Reporting by Sebastian Immanuel Vargas Additional writing by Elena Marinaccio
There’s an underlying tension to Tino Ortega’s work. It stems from the complexity inherent in much of what he does, as he strives to reconcile underlying dualities in a layered mix of old and new, graffiti and gallery, work and family.
Beto by Tino Ortega
He’s collaborated with fellow El Pasoan Peter Svarzbein and Congressman Beto O’Rourke is a fan of his paintings (check out our cover art for the February issue). But Ortega says he avoids political sentiment in his own work, finding inspiration instead in his budding home life. For this self-taught artist who strives to unify street art and fine art, family comes first.
SIV: I understand you’re about to be a father. How much of your personal life influences the work you produce?
Ortega: A lot of it influences the work I do. When I get an idea, I sketch it out and sometimes have multiple renditions of them before I make it into a sketch. I paint because I want to. Going to be a father makes me excited and makes me want to work; it puts me in the mood to paint. I try to focus a lot of time with my family and my work so it’s inevitable that they’d intertwine.
Mural on Texas Ave. Image by Congressman Beto O’Rourke
SIV: I viewed the mural on Texas Ave., which Congressman Beto O’Rourke posted an image of onto his Facebook profile. How did that particular piece come about? Were you commissioned to do the piece or do you purchase the use of the space?
Ortega: The mural on Texas was done for a friend’s family who owned the space. It was my first mural I did on my own—I had done a number of other collaborative pieces with other artists—and I did the piece for free. I was glad that Beto O’Rourke was able to show it off in a way. With a piece like that, I try to find an image that’ll fit it appropriately. It took me just over a week to find the right image to fit that wall and I guess it fit it perfectly.
SIV: You’re showing a new painting at the New York City vanity gallery Broadway Gallery NYC. How did that process come about, how were you approached?
Ortega: I actually submitted my stuff a couple years ago. It was one of those things where you do it and forget about it. A couple months ago I got contacted by one of their curators and they asked me a number of questions about my art. I honestly thought it was a joke because it had been so long since I had submitted my stuff. The more they kept talking about it, the more I realized how serious they were.
I remember in a pre-Facebook time where you’d actually have to go door to door and knock on galleries to see if they’d showcase your work. Being online really makes things a lot easier for getting your name out there. I don’t have a website but when people post on their Facebook and tag me in the image, I’m glad that people can appreciate the work that I do.
Ana by Tino Ortega
SIV: Your work combines elements of both street art and fine art. What brought about your interest in unifying the two?
Ortega: It came about in seeing street art in galleries and fine art out in the streets, which was a bit unnerving. The style that I’ve been known for is derivative of both so I decided to create a hybrid of the two.
SIV: How did that translate in your Texas Ave. mural?
Ortega: I was just trying to be different. I didn’t go to art school because I was afraid that it would teach me how to paint what other people want. I wanted to paint what I wanted. I was approached later by many people that said my art incorporates many different styles that other artist’s use.
SIV: Do you feel as though your work adds to the political commentary or is it “art for art’s sake”?
Ortega: My work is more “art for art’s sake.” I like the idea that the viewers can be a part of the art. Colors aren’t as mixed on the pallet as they are in the eye. You can say that it’s a series of smaller painting that make up a large image.
SIV: What sort of medium do you gravitate toward?
Ortega: Honestly, I’ll do pretty much anything I can get my hands one. I bought a tattoo kit and drew this rose on my thigh and tattooed it out. I try to do a little bit of everything. One of the things I’ve been wanting to do is go back to oils. It was one of the things that I first learned to paint but right now I’ve been mostly working with acrylics.
SIV: Do you prefer the large-scale pieces like the mural, or smaller ones?
Ortega: I don’t have a preference. I guess if I were to have one it would be one that would be most accessible to the most viewers. One of the things that I don’t like about murals is that they are stationary, it can’t move from that one place. On the other hand, it can empower that one place and it can be known for bringing life to the area.
SIV: You mentioned that you had done collaborative works with other artists?
Ortega: I worked with Peter Svarzbein who was working with the Trolley Projects. We did a couple projects that were temporary pieces that got knocked down. I also helped him out with the “Temple to the Future Project” and contributed some stuff to a plywood project where we were trying to cover the chain link fences downtown with art installations.
SIV: Any new art in the works?
Ortega: For now, I’m going to take some time off for me…I’m working on a piece for my girl right now…but it has to be big. She’s my inspiration. I only want to do it on a very large scale. So I’m just working on it in my head right now.
This past year has been very chaotic with regards to painting and I don’t have any type of plans but who knows what the future may hold. I don’t know where it’ll take me but I’m sure it’ll open doors.
The Art Avenue Art Market and Art Show was a huge success as local artist exhibited their work downtown at The Camino Real. Paintings, drawings and jewelry were just a few of the item displayed as locals enjoyed in the various mediums as part of the Last Thursday Art Crawl.
The Art Avenue sponsored its first annual art show and art market in December. Local artists Monica Lozano, Brian Wancho, Sammy Lopez, Adriene PERALDI, Alejandro Lomeli, Cardio Cardona, Fran Santelli, Mauricio Mora & Ricardo Garcia each displayed there work. The Art Avenue Art Market presented art vendors who lined the halls of the Mezzanine of The Camino Real hotel in downtown El Paso displaying their items as last minute Christmas shoppers purchased one of a kind items.
In its 16-minute running time, El Fuego Detras follows a suicidal writer whose life becomes entangled with that of a young immigrant girl when an unexpected crime is committed. The film is set in El Paso and was shot over one weekend in late January.
