Roberts Projects is pleased to present Santa Monica, an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Mexico-based artist Roberto Gil de Montes. Spanning from 1995-1997, the works mark a significant time of exploration for the artist who had just returned to California after living in Mexico City.
Allegorical and personal, Gil de Monte’s work highlights kinship and folklore, composing a daydreamlike reflection of the everyday. The work dances between seriousness and absurdity, balancing atmospheric movement with figurative stillness. Using thick brush strokes and a sense of museful experimentation, Gil de Montes welcomes the viewer into a hazy world of reverie.
About the Artist
Roberto Gil de Montes (b. 1950; based in La Peñita, Mexico) was born in Guadalajara, Mexico and relocated to Los Angeles in his early teens. He earned his BFA and MFA from Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, and became involved in the Chicano art movement, gleaning inspiration from his dualistic identity as a means of creative expression.
While visiting a remote fishing town in the pacific coast of Nayarit, Mexico, Gil de Montes developed profound appreciation for a traditional and outmoded way of life as modeled by the Huichol people. This personal discovery charted the trajectory for his work in which Huichol iconography and pre-Columbian artifacts became a recognizable attribute of his art.
Roberto Gil de Monte’s work has been featured in various gallery and institutional exhibitions and is featured in numerous public collections including Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), CA; Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, CA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; Denver Art Museum, CO, among others.