Rockville Patch - By: Bora Mici
The Maryland Hispanic Business Conference is hosting a five-day Honduran art exhibit with works from the private collection of conference Chair Jerry Godwin.
To kick off the 10th Annual Maryland Hispanic Business Conference (MDHBC), which is a joint collaboration of the Hispanic Chambers of Commerce of Maryland, Baltimore and Montgomery County, in close cooperation with government agencies, the planning committee has organized a Honduran art exhibit open to the public for five days and a VIP reception to honor sponsors, speakers, media partners and planning committee members.
Open from Aug. 22 to Aug. 26, 2011 in the Kaplan Gallery at VisArts, the exhibit features over 20 paintings from the private collection of Jerry Godwin, this year's MDHBC Chair, private American art collector and entrepreneur. The exhibition, "Honduras Art Unveiled from the Godwin Collection - A Continuum of Artistic Expression," includes work from contemporary artists, including: Carlos Garay, Elias Diaz, Benigno Flores, Maury Flores, Ciseron Bautista, Ramon Garay, Maltez and Dino Fanconi.
Maryland Leiutenant Governor Anthony Brown will deliver remarks during the exhibition opening and reception on Thursday in the VisArts Kaplan Gallery.
“We are delighted to host our conference supporters in a creative environment that showcases Latin American art. This is an outstanding way to kick off our 10th Annual Conference activities and Hispanic Heritage Month,” Godwin said.
A Business Development Specialist with the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development, Godwin has been collecting American art for the past 15 years.
"My mother, who is from Honduras, always had paintings in the house. She gave me some of her paintings and since then I have been collecting. I've met all the artists personally, and this collection is really a part of my heritage," Godwin said.
The breadth of pieces in Godwin's collection date from the early 1990s on and demonstrate a variety of approaches to oil painting by internationally renowned Honduran artists whose works are in the collections of the World Bank, United Nations, Vatican, Spanish Royal Family, Organization of American States and Inter-American Development Bank.
According to Godwin, Ciseron Bautista, the youngest painter in the group, painted a small portrait of Godwin and gave it to him during a studio visit in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa.
Perhaps the best known of the artists in Godwin's collection, Carlos Garay was active from the 1950s on and painted in the style of the Impressionists. He used a palette knife for most of his vibrant landscapes, which focus on the Honduran countryside. The exhibit features one of his original palette knives with an inscribed dedication.
"I started collecting with Garay. For decades you would mostly see only landscape painting from Honduran artists," explained Godwin, providing some insight into the works. "Garay paints with a spatula. Dino Fanconi wrinkles his canvases before painting on them. Maltez never shows the full face of his figures. Maury Flores is a popular artist, and his style is easy to pick out. Ciseron Bautista and Beningo Flores are largely self-taught. The UN comissioned Flores to do a massive painting. His trademark peace doves are on Honduran stamps. Elias Diaz paints small heads on big bodies and says that they are representative of man. Most of these artists studied at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes de Honduras."
Exhibit hours are Monday through Friday from 10 a.m .to 5 p.m.
Source: rockville.patch.com
