Art show and reception thursday 12/21 6-9 Pm

In 2005 her work was featured in Poetas y Pintores, a traveling exhibition of contemporary Latino art and poetry. In 2006, she became the first Latina to exhibit at the Union League Club Gallery of Chicago with a series entitled Los Magicos. That same year she created an installation at the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame for a national conference on Catholicism: Guadalupe, Madre de America: Narrative, Image and Devotion.
From this, her fascination with iconography led to the life and work of Frida Kahlo and a piece she created for a special exhibition in Mexico City honoring the 100th anniversary of the artist’s birth. A related interest in the icons connected with el Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead led to a Sor Juana project exhibited in 2008 at the University of St. Thomas in Houston.
Gama’s work has since been featured in solo and group shows in Europe, Mexico and around the United States, earning grants, acquisition for permanent collections and numerous awards. From mural restoration to childrens’ book illustrations, Gama’s palette of colors is inspired by both the innocence and darkness exemplified in her series on Frida Kahlo. The recent Op-Ed piece by Salma Hayek on the “monster” in her own screen homage to Frida (mental abuse and sexual harassment), underscores the complexity and contradictions in approaching this Mexican artist and the barriers that still remain in appreciating her life and work (that in many ways are inseparable.)
The present exhibition at Wishbone has prints, mixed media works with hand printed re-creations of pre-Columbian designs . . .and original paintings. It is a kaleidoscope view of Frida . . . and of Esperanza Gama’s own dreamlike world.
The OPENING RECEPTION is Thursday, December 21st from 6 to 9 PM and a very fitting celebration of the Winter Solstice. Please come by to meet the artist and certainly take an extended look at the Couloir Bleu show that will be up through the month of January.
Enjoy! LINK TO A YouTube video created by ESPERANZA: right here!