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The abstract paintings of Jose Villalobos establish a dynamic tension through the interplay of opposites. The large, architectonic works feature solid forms that also appear evanescent, and areas of mass that are acted upon by a lively line or by drips of pigment. In a Villalobos painting fluidity tempers stability, foreground commingles with infinite space, light frames darkness, and warm colors are in dialogue with cool tones. Villalobos’s well-structured paintings unfold like musical compositions, with subtle relationships emerging slowly, working in concert with the initial impact of his biomorphic arches and openings and geometric debris.

The counterpoint of elements is energetic. Unified by the force of rhythms across the picture plane, shapes, forms and colors move at once out of depth and into space, left, right, up and down in ways that suggest flux or becoming. It is as if his abstractions exist only temporarily, and will change into some other configuration in the next moment, or will flow, like flotsam and jetsam, down the cosmic river.

Each Villalobos painting is a closed system of relationships, and this effect of elements working together from top to bottom and side-to-side, amounts to a visual journey undertaken by Villalobos---and the viewer---into a personal, interior place full of psychological portents.

The Oaxacan painter was trained as an architect at the Autonomous National University of Mexico and practiced this profession for years before the calling of painting was too loud to ignore. Villalobos has been influenced by Mexican modernist painters, including Rufino Tamayo and Francisco Toledo, and uses the earth tones and soulful colors of primitive Mexican culture in his abstract vehicles. Since the early 1980s, Villalobos has exhibited in Mexico City and throughout Mexico.

“His way of production is very old and at the same time very contemporary. In the old civilizations they used molds that were repeated with the variations that each piece reacquired. In the artistic laboratory of this century, we keep finding patterns and that Villalobos use without monotony. But based, indeed on the function of a stylistic unity each time more consistent and rigorous.” Raquel Tibol

(Raquel Tibol is one of the most famous and respected art critic in México. She was Tamayo´s Curator and met very closely Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.)

Born 1950 in Ixtepec, Oaxaca.

Education

• Architecture at The Autonomous University of México, Mexico City.

Selected Exhibitions

• 2009 Caldwell Snyder Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
• 2008 Caldwell Snyder Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
• 2004 Caldwell Snyder Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
• 1999 Las Tierras Altas, Cultural Center of Tijuana, Tijuana, Mexico.
• 1998 Las Tierras Altas, Contemporary Art Museum of Oaxaca, Mexico.
• 1996 Houses and Things, Kin Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico.
• 1995 Mixteca´s Canvas, Sintesis Gallery, Puebla, Mexico.
• 1993 Time and it’s Places, Quetzallí´s Gallery, Oaxaca, Mexico.
• 1991 Vestigios Obstinados, Kin Gallery, México, City.
• 1987 Ofrendas y Reliquias, Frida Kahlo Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico.
• 1986 Earthly Days, Kin Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico.
• 1984 Visual Arts and Aesthetic Investigations Center, Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico.
• 1981 Agora Gallery, Fonapas, Oaxaca, Mexico.