There is still a bit more than a week to see the striking series of large-format paintings that are the pandemic-era issue—done in 2020 and 2021—of Guadalajara-born artist Daniel Kent, which are showing at the University of Guadalajara’s Museo de las Artes until Sunday, August 22.
Kent, who says he is self-taught, began his artistic trajectory as a teenager in the 1960s, and since then has labored in much of Europe, the United States and the former Soviet Union—and of course Mexico—in media almost too diverse to mention—including sculpture, printmaking and books, as well as graphic, stage and costume design.
The 20 or so oversize, acrylic paintings that make up “Mitósfera” (perhaps best translated as “mythical atmosphere”) are all the same, near-square size (90 by 118 inches), and also have in common an atmosphere that is dark, eerie and often erotic—perhaps in some cases pornographic, but to decide which, pull out your Webster’s New Hairsplitting Dictionary. Kent’s delineation and contrast are strong and his colors deep and glossy. The paintings uniformly depict slightly fantastic forms in a realistic manner, placing them squarely in the realm of Latin American magical realism.
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