Vergara honors graphics in San Juan

'The multiple in one' is the title of the exhibition that opened last Thursday the 25th at the Delta de Picó Gallery of the Old San Juan Art League.

The plastic richness of traditional graphics is something that has always attracted the Mexican artist based in Puerto Rico, Baruch Vergara. His creative process, including interaction with textures, has interested him since he started very early in art.

She honors that fascination with graphics in her new exhibition “The Multiple in One,” which opened last Thursday, January 25, at the Delta de Pico Gallery of the San Juan Art League.
Using traditional printing techniques, such as screen printing, woodcut, etching, aquatint or stencils combined with painting on canvas, Baruch Vergara investigates the purpose of the repetition of images and how these can give rise to formal transformations in themselves and /or alternate meanings.

“As a graphic artist and painter, I have realized that traditional graphics have been displaced by photography, new printing media, social networks and digital art,” commented the artist. “Repetition is something that is advancing and traditional graphics have become obsolete. Posters are no longer made and news is no longer disseminated in those media. In that context, I was wondering what traditional graphics or old printing media can contribute graphically at this time,” he explained. In response to these questions, this exhibition was born with which Vergara not only presents alternative graphic proposals, but also invites reflection on the effects of the repetition of images in our daily lives.

In this way, the artist questions the indifference of marketing and the irony of consumption. “The habits that are repeated day after day transform societies into alienated, self-absorbed individuals,” said the artist, who addresses in this exhibition some of these concepts, which he contrasts in a hybrid way on his canvases, creating a dialogue of symbols that somehow we all know. Always seeking a balance between form and content, Vergara links the sublime with the subliminal in the exhibition – which has around 20 pieces; time and its paradoxes, through the History of Western Art, as well as the absurdity of overproduction.

Marilú Carrasquillo, executive director of the San Juan Art League, highlighted that it is a source of great joy for the institution to have this exhibition by Baruch Vergara, who is exhibiting for the first time in said capital center. “For us it is a pleasure to host the work of an artist who always invites us to reflect on transcendental issues for humanity. His work, beautifully executed, is a reminder of the love of the craft, as well demonstrated in this new exhibition,” commented Carrasquillo.
“The multiple in one” – which is celebrated in salute to the fifth Poly/Graphic of Puerto Rico: Latin America and the Caribbean – will be open to the public until March 8, 2024. During this period, guided tours will be carried out with the artist and other activities.

The San Juan Art League is located on Doctor Francisco Rufino de Goenaga Street, in front of the Plaza del Quinto Centenario, in Old San Juan. Open Tuesday and Wednesday, from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., and Thursday to Saturday, from 8:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. For more information, you can call (787) 725-5453 or visit the Art League website, ligadeartesj.org. You can also visit social networks, @ligadearte on Facebook and Instagram.

About Baruch Vergara –

He is a Mexican artist who has lived in Puerto Rico for 18 years. His work reflects aesthetic and axiological paradigms linked to the history of art and its implications in our time. He studied fine arts at the University of the Americas in Puebla and later lived in Milan, Italy, where he became involved with the contemporary printmaking scene. Upon his return to Puebla, he directed the Erasto Cortés Museum dedicated to graphics; He studied a master's degree in aesthetics and art at the Autonomous University of Puebla and obtained two engraving scholarships from the State FONCA (1998 and 2003). Upon his arrival in Puerto Rico, he worked in Antonio Martorell's La Playa de Ponce workshop, on the project “La plena immortal”. From now on, he has participated in various collective projects as an artist and curator; At the same time, he has held individual exhibitions in various galleries and institutions in Puerto Rico and Mexico. In teaching, he has worked as a professor of engraving, drawing and painting at different universities in Mexico and Puerto Rico; and since 2012, he is an art professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez campus.