Esperanza give me hope

August 19th 2020

Isaac Vazquez Avila

Esperanza Give Me Hope

Guerrero Gallery is proud to present Esperanza Give Me Hope, an online exhibition of new work by Isaac Vazquez Avila, consisting of paintings and sculptures installed within an abandoned industrial warehouse on the edge of San Francisco. The exhibition’s title with its repetition of meanings conveyed in both Spanish and English, are echoed in the paintings themselves, energetic compositions anchored by geometric pseudo architectural forms upon which fragments of language and the occasional numbers are hung, all painted in saturated tones of oil and gouache. Figurative sculptures that feel as if they’ve slunk from the vivacious paintings populate what is otherwise an eerily vacant space, breathing activity into an area that was once bustling, haunting the cavernous halls with their dynamically ambiguous forms.

These are works that hint at ethnography–coded subjects and snippets of text acting as markers or time stamps, connecting to ideas around geography, patterns, culture and more. Yet to Avila and those who have followed the artist’s trajectory, these works also feel deeply personal as commemorations of events, experiences and people. Avila’s background in collage is reflected not only in the layered nature of his paintings, multiple planes overlaying one another as fragments of language are interspersed, but also in the nature of the artist’s sculptures which feel like a true merging of collage and painting as found pieces of wood are worked into dynamic forms only to be further animated by layers of bright paint, texture and patterning. Just as the snippets of text, undoubtedly seeping into the works from his work as part of Avila Rose Signs (a sign painting company started with the talented sign painter Lauren D’Amato), hint at elusive meanings, the sculptures suggest figurative forms that pull from both human and animal realms. 

Esperanza Give Me Hope, the potent combination of a series of Isaac Vazquez Avila’s colorful paintings and sculptures staged within the dusty halls of industry that have since ground to a halt, is in essence an exploration in tension and contrasts, a simultaneous revelry in melancholy and optimism–a sensation that has become so familiar as we hope to deftly navigate the challenging times that are constantly being thrown our way.