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May 2017
Feature Ruben Urrea Moreno's Awareness Art Wee Gallery, Tucson by C.J. Shane |
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Ruben Urrea Moreno_Medusa_
Many of us creative types are having a hard time these days coming to terms with the increasing levels of corruption, casual violence, and general disregard for human welfare and human rights. I’ve lost count of how many artists have told me that they have just quit watching or listening to the news – and they recommend that I do the same. We are retreating into our studios and painting, or playing music, or writing poems and novels. We cannot seem to figure out how we can be artists and yet address all these problems without getting dragged into the muck.
Tucson artist Ruben Urrea Moreno has come up with a new approach that many of us will find heartening and inspiring, as well as artistically satisfying and intellectually challenging. Moreno, known to many of us for his surrealistic paintings deeply informed by his pre-Columbian indigenous and Mexican heritage, has a new series on exhibit now at Wee Gallery, 439 N. 6th St., Tucson (just off 6th Ave.) The exhibit is titled “Doing What I Can,” and it will be available for viewing through June 3.
Moreno has created nine charcoal and graphite images of mythological beings, each of which is linked to a specific social cause. He is donating the entire purchase amount to the cause. The nine causes he has chosen to support are immigrant and refugee rights, prevention of gun violence, LGBT rights, economic and social justice, racial justice, civil rights, safety for women and children, Native American rights, and climate change awareness.
Tucson artist Ruben Urrea Moreno has come up with a new approach that many of us will find heartening and inspiring, as well as artistically satisfying and intellectually challenging. Moreno, known to many of us for his surrealistic paintings deeply informed by his pre-Columbian indigenous and Mexican heritage, has a new series on exhibit now at Wee Gallery, 439 N. 6th St., Tucson (just off 6th Ave.) The exhibit is titled “Doing What I Can,” and it will be available for viewing through June 3.
Moreno has created nine charcoal and graphite images of mythological beings, each of which is linked to a specific social cause. He is donating the entire purchase amount to the cause. The nine causes he has chosen to support are immigrant and refugee rights, prevention of gun violence, LGBT rights, economic and social justice, racial justice, civil rights, safety for women and children, Native American rights, and climate change awareness.
RubenUrrea Moreno _Quetzalcoatl_
However, Moreno doesn’t stop with simply giving a generous gift to a good cause. In the exhibit description, he refers to his work as “awareness art.” Moreno’s goal is to create art that “does not depict the horrors of injustice, but instead inspires an awareness about taking action to address it.” In communications with me, Moreno adds to this statement, “My intentions are to create art in solidarity of those who call for justice and those who spread awareness, and to inspire all who would like to get involved, to conjure up new ways to contribute to the ongoing task for peace and justice.”
Consequently his artwork is much more subtle and complex in its meaning than just any new painting offered for a good cause. Moreno has chosen mythological beings from several civilizations and from different epochs to speak directly to the linked cause. Here is just one example. The Lamassu are ancient Assyrian protective beings with a human's head, bird’s wings and an ox or lion’s body. Moreno’s Lamassu are linked to the protection of refugees and immigrants through the Owl and Panther project of the Hopi Foundation (HopiFoundation.org).
Moreno explains, “With the Lamassu who is standing for the fight against xenophobia, it's said that he is the parent of all the zodiacs and is a powerful protective deity encompassing all life within. To me this means that he represents a broad scope of people. Since some of the Lamassu monuments have been relocated to safe places, to me, the symbolic strength is best suited to stand in support and protection of refugees and immigrants.” Regretfully I have to add that some of the Lamassu that were at home in modern Iraq and Syria have been destroyed quite recently by radical militants (morons all).
My favorite of Moreno’s mythic beings is Quetzalcoatl, the winged serpent of the ancient Nahuatl Aztec culture. For a long time, historians told us that the Aztecs viewed the Spanish invader Cortés as a manifestation of the god Quetzalcoal. Being viewed as a god was no doubt pleasing to the Spanish, of course, but modern historians think that this claim is unlikely. The Spanish conquered the Aztec empire, executed the last Aztec emperor, and began a several centuries’ colonization that stretched up into Alta California, including modern-day Arizona. The Spanish had guns, horses, and the informant La Malinche. But the greatest Spanish weapon against the Aztec was germ warfare in the form of an African slave they brought with them. The slave had smallpox. Within a century, 90% of the indigenous population of MesoAmerica was dead from smallpox, influenza, measles, and other European viral diseases. This is what scholars call a “massive demographic collapse.”
Already fascinated with Quetzalcoatl, I had to figure out for myself why the winged serpent of the Aztecs was linked to Moreno’s cause, climate change awareness, in the form of 350.org. I did a little research and found that Quetzalcoatl represented learning, crafts, and the wind in the form of hurricanes, tornadoes, and whirl pools. According to Wikipedia, Quetzalcoatl represented to the Aztecs all the elemental forces of nature. These elemental forces are currently being dramatically affected by climate change. We as a human species are undergoing some forced learning (learning being another Quetzalcoatl dominion) as we begin to absorb beyond a doubt that we humans are a part of nature, not above or outside or beyond nature.
This is the real gift of this exhibit, the “awareness art” that takes us into deep levels of knowing about our own history and our understanding of our relationships with each other and the Earth.
Rather than spoil things for you, I’m going to let you have the joy of discovering these deeper levels of knowledge in the other works of Moreno’s exhibit. I did ask him how he decided on which mythological beings would be linked to the causes he had chosen.
“I did so much research,” Moreno explained. “I dived into all the various sources of knowledge and tried my best to pick the pertinent information. Through this process, the being would start to step forward and toward a certain cause. A few times I could see them raise their hands or paws and say "Me, me, me, that one is my cause!" They all eventually fell right into place. It was a moving process. I do have to thank Anna, my fiancée for all the advice and insight that she shared with me. I'm continually humbled by her insight and brilliance.”
Finally, I brought up to Moreno the case of Chinese artist Ai WeiWei who has been in trouble with the Chinese government for many years. He’s been censored, beaten, and incarcerated, but still he creates art that provokes. Ai WeiWei was asked in a recent 60 Minutes interview if he considers himself an artist or an activist. His answer: “I think artist and activist is the same thing. As artist, you always have to be an activist.”
I asked Ruben Urrea Moreno the same question. He said, “What a sad thing to have to live with as a nation, as a united group of citizens. We, too, have our tragedies, the whole world has them, and what do we do? We want to place blame, punish those responsible, put up a monument and remember them every year until it doesn't hurt as much. But what's being done to change society from preventing all these horrors? What stands up and keeps working long after one activist is gone? Written word, music, and visual art. The intentions of these inspired creations go on forever (one would hope). So Ai WeiWei's comments couldn't be more accurate. It's a noble thing to want to be an activist on any scale, combining your art with it, I imagine, can elicit purpose in life and healing energy.……. Creating art with a purpose is the only way I can see myself moving forward.”
Learn more about Ruben Urrea Moreno’s exhibit “Doing What I Can” at Wee Gallery, http://gallerywee.com/ or on his blog at http://rubenurreamoreno1111.blogspot.com/
To purchase one of the works in the series, or a print (11”x 17”) of one of the artworks, contact Ruben at to rubenurreamoreno@yahoo.com. He can ship both originals and prints.
Also see and hear Ruben talk about his artwork by clicking on our Video page. Scroll down to July/August 2013 to see the video.
Consequently his artwork is much more subtle and complex in its meaning than just any new painting offered for a good cause. Moreno has chosen mythological beings from several civilizations and from different epochs to speak directly to the linked cause. Here is just one example. The Lamassu are ancient Assyrian protective beings with a human's head, bird’s wings and an ox or lion’s body. Moreno’s Lamassu are linked to the protection of refugees and immigrants through the Owl and Panther project of the Hopi Foundation (HopiFoundation.org).
Moreno explains, “With the Lamassu who is standing for the fight against xenophobia, it's said that he is the parent of all the zodiacs and is a powerful protective deity encompassing all life within. To me this means that he represents a broad scope of people. Since some of the Lamassu monuments have been relocated to safe places, to me, the symbolic strength is best suited to stand in support and protection of refugees and immigrants.” Regretfully I have to add that some of the Lamassu that were at home in modern Iraq and Syria have been destroyed quite recently by radical militants (morons all).
My favorite of Moreno’s mythic beings is Quetzalcoatl, the winged serpent of the ancient Nahuatl Aztec culture. For a long time, historians told us that the Aztecs viewed the Spanish invader Cortés as a manifestation of the god Quetzalcoal. Being viewed as a god was no doubt pleasing to the Spanish, of course, but modern historians think that this claim is unlikely. The Spanish conquered the Aztec empire, executed the last Aztec emperor, and began a several centuries’ colonization that stretched up into Alta California, including modern-day Arizona. The Spanish had guns, horses, and the informant La Malinche. But the greatest Spanish weapon against the Aztec was germ warfare in the form of an African slave they brought with them. The slave had smallpox. Within a century, 90% of the indigenous population of MesoAmerica was dead from smallpox, influenza, measles, and other European viral diseases. This is what scholars call a “massive demographic collapse.”
Already fascinated with Quetzalcoatl, I had to figure out for myself why the winged serpent of the Aztecs was linked to Moreno’s cause, climate change awareness, in the form of 350.org. I did a little research and found that Quetzalcoatl represented learning, crafts, and the wind in the form of hurricanes, tornadoes, and whirl pools. According to Wikipedia, Quetzalcoatl represented to the Aztecs all the elemental forces of nature. These elemental forces are currently being dramatically affected by climate change. We as a human species are undergoing some forced learning (learning being another Quetzalcoatl dominion) as we begin to absorb beyond a doubt that we humans are a part of nature, not above or outside or beyond nature.
This is the real gift of this exhibit, the “awareness art” that takes us into deep levels of knowing about our own history and our understanding of our relationships with each other and the Earth.
Rather than spoil things for you, I’m going to let you have the joy of discovering these deeper levels of knowledge in the other works of Moreno’s exhibit. I did ask him how he decided on which mythological beings would be linked to the causes he had chosen.
“I did so much research,” Moreno explained. “I dived into all the various sources of knowledge and tried my best to pick the pertinent information. Through this process, the being would start to step forward and toward a certain cause. A few times I could see them raise their hands or paws and say "Me, me, me, that one is my cause!" They all eventually fell right into place. It was a moving process. I do have to thank Anna, my fiancée for all the advice and insight that she shared with me. I'm continually humbled by her insight and brilliance.”
Finally, I brought up to Moreno the case of Chinese artist Ai WeiWei who has been in trouble with the Chinese government for many years. He’s been censored, beaten, and incarcerated, but still he creates art that provokes. Ai WeiWei was asked in a recent 60 Minutes interview if he considers himself an artist or an activist. His answer: “I think artist and activist is the same thing. As artist, you always have to be an activist.”
I asked Ruben Urrea Moreno the same question. He said, “What a sad thing to have to live with as a nation, as a united group of citizens. We, too, have our tragedies, the whole world has them, and what do we do? We want to place blame, punish those responsible, put up a monument and remember them every year until it doesn't hurt as much. But what's being done to change society from preventing all these horrors? What stands up and keeps working long after one activist is gone? Written word, music, and visual art. The intentions of these inspired creations go on forever (one would hope). So Ai WeiWei's comments couldn't be more accurate. It's a noble thing to want to be an activist on any scale, combining your art with it, I imagine, can elicit purpose in life and healing energy.……. Creating art with a purpose is the only way I can see myself moving forward.”
Learn more about Ruben Urrea Moreno’s exhibit “Doing What I Can” at Wee Gallery, http://gallerywee.com/ or on his blog at http://rubenurreamoreno1111.blogspot.com/
To purchase one of the works in the series, or a print (11”x 17”) of one of the artworks, contact Ruben at to rubenurreamoreno@yahoo.com. He can ship both originals and prints.
Also see and hear Ruben talk about his artwork by clicking on our Video page. Scroll down to July/August 2013 to see the video.
