December 4, 2014
Panama City, Panama – First Round of Art – A Quick Post
Post card for artist Tobo Toral. The series is called Is Not A Boat In The Canal.
When I asked the male host, Federico, at our hostel about where to see local art, he rolled his eyes in disgust, “I am from Italy. Art…there is no such thing in Panama…!” (And while we are at it – don’t get him started on the Canal — it’s just a big hole and they can’t even do that right..the Romans, now they knew how to build something. I digress…) With that ringing endorsement, Aaron and I took to the internet and plotted our own little art walk, just a short taxi ride from our hostel in the San Francisco district of the city.
I must say we saw really wonderful paintings and sculpture at four galleries. At the Imagen Gallery the work was exceptional and a curator with very little English accompanied us throughout our long look around. She told us in Spanish that Aaron was able to comprehend (so talking art with a grade-schooler vocabulary) all about the artists we were seeing. She made the day pretty darn special.
Aaron and I soaked it in and at the end of our visit Aaron closed by asking me the question he always asks after we have seen such amazing work: “Okay! If you could pick just one piece..which one!?!” We will even admit checking the price on one particular sculpture from Cuba (metal bar/banding swirled around to look like a tornado and painted red – would have looked great in our house!)….but since we want to continue this trip, we regrettably had to leave it at the gallery. (Sorry Debby….I KNOW you are just waiting for the day when we do ship something home. I am waiting too!) When we returned hours later to the hostel, Maria, the lady hostel host (presumably the wife of Federico) asked us about our day. When we told her where we had been, her eyes got a dreamy look and she said in her fabulous Italian/Spanish accent, “bonita…bonita” – beautiful!
Where we went: Galeria Arte Consult, Imagen Gallery, Marion Gallery, plus one other.
I couldn’t find much of a web-presence for the Galleries or the Artists. We did find a few pictures of their art:
We both loved the Peruvian Cesar Cirilo paintings. This is from a post card.
Cesar Arboleda of Panama
Omar Garcia – he prefers large sized ladies because there is more room to paint!
Omar Garcia from Columbia
Another Tabo Toral post card
We’re looking forward to seeing some more galleries in the Casco Antiguo district tomorrow!
When my son and his wife spent three months touring Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Ecuador they found the street art (what we call graffiti) very interesting. I have to say I was impressed with some I saw in Ecuador. Probably not museum quality, but pretty darn good.
We’ve been pretty impressed by it as well! Just went on a long walk today and came across a couple of women painting a wall with some pretty amazing skills – quite the mix of brushes, spray paint and who knows what else? Also the busses! The old school busses that have been tricked out with art and horns and serpent humps and and and…going to do a post just on those in the next few days.
Oh, yes…I remember the buses. Insane!