“Hyacinth” 7×5 inches, oil on panel @ Meyer East Gallery SOLD

New work at Meyer East Gallery. I am very busy painting for my upcoming Santa Fe solo show. I will be posting works for the show as they become available leading up to the opening on August 30th.

Also today, I will be painting on Canyon Road at the gallery. I will do a sort-of demonstration in the early afternoon (I’m bringing in a work currently in progress and attempt to make more progress on it). This is to support the Canyon Road Passport to the Arts annual event and join in on the fun. So stop by and say hello if you’re in Santa Fe.

A self-taught painter, Fatima Ronquillo layers her portraits with the traditional symbols and charms of classic-style portraiture — objects that meant different things in different times and have to be studied to be completely understood. Ronquillo’s  subjects similarly face the viewer decorated with blindfolds, eye patches, fauns, flowers — and by pulling them into the contemporary, we are reminded us of the aesthetic value of these objects that we are free to attach our own significance to.

Fatima Ronquillo’s new paintings come across as Wes Anderson directing the ghost of José Gil de Castro in rendering a series of children’s portraits influenced by Edward Gorey. But you don’t have to grok our transcultural  meaning to appreciate the sublime, enigmatic beauty of these oil-on-panel wonders…. ~ The Austin Chronicle, April 5, 2013

Returning to Austin for a show is like coming home, seeing old friends and revisiting favored haunts. Wally Workman’s peach and chartreuse building was as welcoming as ever. There are more photos to be seen on the gallery’s blog. Thank you to all those who attended and gave their support. For those who missed it, the show closes on the 27th, so do stop in and check it out.

American Art Collector
Issue 90, April 2013
pages 122-123

The Collector Says…

“The paintings of Fatima Ronquillo caught my eye as I was perusing the website of Wally Workman Gallery several years ago. I was completely taken by what I discovered. The classic portraits executed with such a refined hand spoke to my love of early American portraits. Drawn in by the beautiful jewel tones, I was reminded of Mexican and Spanish colonial art… The intrigue of Fatima’s work is that even in its serious form there is always a sense of wonder, of magic; a slight quirk, if you will.” ―Ann Williams, Fredericksburg, Texas

“Eye miniatures” were tokens of secret love in the 18th and 19th centuries. Known today as “lover’s eyes,” the miniature paintings placed in lockets, brooches and tiny boxes were recognizable only to the lover and the beloved.

“The surreal aspect of an isolated ‘lover’s eye’ attracts me tremendously,” Fatima Ronquillo writes, “the idea of physical dismemberment which is symbolic of a removal or estrangement of a loved one. For anyone who has ever been in love or had a crush on someone, the photograph of the beloved is treasured. It reminds me of the Mexican milagros―little charms of different body parts used to aid in praying for the healing of broken arms or hearts, or even eyes.”

As an artist, she observes, “Compositionally speaking, the framed ornamental eye gives context and a reason for a floating third or fourth eye in a painting. It’s a device of conceit: a portrait within a portrait.”

In her exhibition, Private Revolution at Wally Workman Gallery in Austin, Texas, there is a painting aptly titled Incognito in which the figure wears a  masquerade mask that only vaguely disguises the wearer who has a “lover’s eye” pinned to the breast of his uniform jacket.

The gallery notes, “Private Revolution is a celebration of the various private revolutions that her imagined personages launch: rebellions against indifferent beloveds, oppressive thoughts, and real or perceived injuries. There is  context for the ongoing themes of symbolic or literal wounds, mingled with the optimism of youth, lovers and dreamers.”

Ronquillo was born in the Philippines and is self-taught. She began making paintings in the style of the European masters she saw in books and has absorbed elements of magical realism as well as folk art.

Her often androgynous portraits are vehicles for stories that suggest inner lives―the artist’s, the subject’s and our own. They are difficult to place in time. They are both dramatic and humorous. The tiny size of most (9 by 7 inches) makes them as intimate and mysterious as “lover’s eyes.”