Street Art studio visit

Emilio Zapata. 

Many of the members do work of his image, as he was a highly regarded figure during the Mexican Revolution.

So, on my last full day in Oaxaca we (Pearl, Nicole, Irma, Helen, Patricia [newly graduated Rice U. student I had met recently at an art opening in Oaxaca] and I) were able to visit (through the help of Stephanie Wood) the "studio" of a street art collective named ASAR-O (Assembly of Revolutionary Artists of Oaxaca).  We met Mario (one of the founders), who showed us much of the artwork of members and his own. A special thanks to Irma for helping translate our questions!

Mario and several prints.

It was important for me and Nicole especially to get this visit, since Nicole and I are doing a collaborative lesson on Oaxacan street art as part of our NEH grant fulfillment. And, let's be honest, Nicole was in absolute heaven as a printmaker herself! :-)  I won't bore those of you who aren't into art with tons of info. here, so you can click here, or here, or even here. The last link is to a bilingual interview of ASAR-O members at a Houston radio station (they had an exhibit at a gallery in Houston back in 2008, unfortunately I didn't know of them then!).  The artworks above and below are prints, except where noted. Printmaking definition for those who don't know what I am talking about when I mean "print".

Most of the artworks are political 

(the poster on the left is about the recent elections in Mexico and Oaxaca state, the one on the right is more obviously about oil).

Some of the members acrylic paintings.

The group is currently inactive, but also used to create art in the streets of Oaxaca as forms of protest, using paint and/or stencils as seen below.