Canadian artist Fiona Dunnett: Images of self and death in Oaxaca are muted with comic style and collage

Alvin Starkman, M.A., LL.B.

Comic strips, a young Canadian’s self portraits, and photographs of violent deaths in a Mexican daily newspaper, make strange bedfellows. But they constitute a major part of the driving force for the creative energies of Fiona Dunnett.

Ottawa-born Dunnett has been living in Oaxaca since 2005. As in the case of so many artists who now reside in this city in southern Mexico, her arrival has been rather circuitous. And like so many others, her artistic talent has been influenced at virtually every stop along the way. At age five she left Canada for Bangladesh with her Canadian diplomat mother and the rest of her family. After three years it was back to Ottawa, and then a further three years in Zimbabwe.

“When I left Zimbabwe I felt close to South Africa. I took a course in stone sculpture while there, so yes, I suppose living in Zimbabwe has had somewhat of an influence on what I do today,” she surmises. But it was her upper level academic training, first at the Canterbury School of Arts, followed by British Columbia’s University of Victoria from which she graduated with an Hons. B.A. in Fine Arts, which exposed her to the personages who have impacted her creativity the most.

“I’ve had a strong interest in the work of Gustav Klimt [1862 – 1918],” Dunnett reveals. The Austrian symbolist painter was one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Art Nouveau movement, yet a controversial figure in his time, criticized for his works being too sensual and erotic. She continues: “But it’s Lichtenstein whose art I’ve actually made more of a conscious effort to respect and carry forward, imprinting it with a bit of my own personality and life experiences.”

Roy Fox Lichtenstein [1923 – 1997] was a prominent American pop artist, whose work was heavily influenced by both popular advertising and the comic book style. The latter clearly shines through in Dunnett’s more recent works, and in an earlier piece which graces a wall in her home in Oaxaca’s Xochimilco neighborhood which she shares with her boyfriend and three others: “That one’s based on a dream I had, certainly with overt comic book imagery; in the particular dream there was a calenda (parade), with bodies being dragged through the streets. I once did a series based on my dreams. I dyed the red sky forming part of the background of this canvas with cochineal [the minute insect with naturally produces carminic acid, and was an important export industry for Oaxaca during colonial times].”

Dunnett is much too modest. Since moving to Oaxaca there’s no doubt that she’s put her own mark on the comic style, with her un-daunting desire to learn, and innovate. The geographical, cultural and political environment in which she lives provides her with diverse opportunities for artistic inspiration. She attended a workshop to learn about the use of natural dyes such as flowers, plants and of course cochineal, at the educational and research facility known as Centro de Difusión de la Grana Cochinilla Tlapanochestli. “For quite some time I’d been thinking about using natural dyes in my work, but it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I realized that here in Oaxaca [actually a few kilometers out of the city, in Santa María Coyotepec] I had the opportunity to learn about their use from an expert, Manuel Loera Fernández, the chemist at Tlapanochestli. There’s just so much artistic stimulation in Oaxaca that it’s hard to resist taking advantage of everything available.”

Dunnett has also participated in more traditional hands-on seminars, at the well-known Graphic Arts Institute of Oaxaca (IAGO) and at a couple of other institutes in the city. Towards the other end of the spectrum, she credits two local graffiti stencil art groups with providing her with additional inspiration, which becomes apparent after an examination of her work.

“I began moving out of realism and into stylized, surreal works towards the end of my Canadian academic training. It was about the same time that I began working with mixed media, my strong preference at this stage of my development.” Coming to Oaxaca was perhaps the catalyst she required in order to begin more experimental work, within the context of an extremely encouraging environment.

Aside from a leaning towards the use of natural colors for backgrounds on her canvasses, one of the major identifying features of Dunnett’s work is her use of collage --- cut-outs from newspapers, magazines and comic books. Another is using photographs of her own head and face to provide the stimulus for her portrayal of expressions and poses she seeks to capture for each subject. Almost every head in every work is based on a self-photographic portrait:

“I started doing self-portraits when I began doing photography several years ago. Then when I moved into painting, I had this corpus of self-photos, so I was able to draw from them for my art. Although I wanted to shoot other people, I never felt at ease doing so. And though my boyfriend and I have been together for close to four years, I still don’t feel comfortable photographing even him. So it’s all me, perhaps because of being shy when it comes to shooting others. But that red one over there, textured with corn husks from tamales, it’s an experiment, using a face that’s not my own --- I think it’s best if I stick to my own face.”

Each face evokes different emotions, and images of self. “The faces make eye contact; viewers’ eyes move around each work and then return to the eyes and face,” she explains. It’s undeniable that Dunnett’s own pleasing facial features, and her comport, once transferred to canvas, play a significant role in directing the viewer. She has masterfully photographed her head and upper body at every angle and with a plethora of facial expressions for use in her work.

But there’s another reason we return to the images of Dunnett’s facial expressions: The torso and limbs of each primary subject portrayed is far too troubling --- each is a digitalized version of a photograph of a person who has died a violent death, usually in a traffic collision or as a consequence of domestic conflict, captured by Dunnett from both print and online versions of a Oaxacan daily, Noticias Voz e Imagen de Oaxaca. But in the artist herself, there is a sense of calm.

“I started using those photographs because they just began to jump out at me. You never see anything like it in Canada. In Oaxaca, it’s on the street corners and in the newsstands. Death here seems to be an everyday thing, and attitudes towards death are so different than from where you and I come from, not so hidden away.”

Dunnett stresses that her intention is not to invoke feelings of horror, nor reveal the gruesome. The facial expressions she initially captures with a lens, then transposes onto canvas with brush, lead us away. In the case of her work with a collaged iguana, it’s curiosity in her face, rather than demonic imagery of death, which draws one in.

The juxtaposition of death against the aesthetics of comic imagery is striking, almost as much as the multiplicity of presentations of Dunnett’s own self. It’s that combination which maintains the viewer’s awe of and transfixation upon her work. Perhaps Fiona Dunnett never should break out of her reticence about photographing the faces of others.

Alvin Starkman has a Masters in Social Anthropology from Toronto’s York University, and a law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School. Alvin ceased practicing law in 2004, when he and his wife Arlene began living permanently in Oaxaca. Since that time, Alvin has written over 90 articles about life and cultural traditions in and around Oaxaca and its central valleys, for newspapers, magazines, and websites promoting tourism in Mexico and abroad. Alvin and Arlene operate Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast (http://www.oaxacadream.com).

Manuel Reyes: sculptor, painter and renaissance man from the Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca

Alvin Starkman, M.A. LL.B.

Artist Manuel Reyes aspires to exhibit his work in art galleries in Oaxaca and Mexico City. Give him that exposure over the next couple of years, and there’s little doubt his genius will be known in New York, Chicago, and further abroad. American, Canadian and European art collectors are already tapping their Mexican networks to figure out how to make their way to his modest home and workshop in the village of Yanhuitlan, an hour and a half outside of the city of Oaxaca, to marvel at his artistry … and buy it up.

Reyes was born in Mexico City (d.o.b. 20/12/72) to Oaxacan parents. He balks at any suggestion that he is not pure Oaxacan: “My parents are from the Mixteca Alta, right in this region of the state, and I’ve always considered myself a Oaxacan. That’s my heritage, my birthright. I just happen to have been born out of state. While I’ve had training from some of the grand masters of Mexican art, I’ve developed a large part of my artistic style from watching and speaking to local artists right here in the Mixteca.”

Reyes began studying art in 1990. He attended the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas in Xochimilco, Mexico City. He moved to Cuernavaca in 1995, where he was mentored by the likes of Roger Von Gunten, Joy Laville, Francisco Lastra and Juan Soriano. He studied predominantly seriography, sculpture and painting. In 2003 Reyes returned to the Mixteca, and has since then re-established his roots. “The lessons I learned through my formal training have been invaluable, but I gain inspiration and have adopted techniques not solely from my maestros, to whom I owe a great deal, but also from the artists and craftspeople of the Oaxacan district of Nochixtlán.”

Reyes works together with his wife Maricela, a gifted artist in her own right. In fact their six-year-old daughter Natalia does ceramics with her mother, and painting with Manuel. “Some of our pieces are not only inspired by Natalia, but she actually participates in their creation. Look at this oil mixed with sand on canvas, with its fanciful and childlike figures. Natalia actually began the piece, and I just brought to fruition what was in her mind and she had already begun to put to paper.”

“My main influences are Rufino Tamayo for my painting, and Maribel Portela for my sculpture,” he continues. “But what I’ve learned from the people of my culture has been invaluable to my work … the use of a wood-burning kiln made of mud and brick, about the different kinds of clays for sculpting --- many of which are available in Oaxaca --- and how to mix different kinds of soils to create a broad range of paint colors and tones, and textures. In the end my pieces are products of my local environment, or at times made from materials I’ve sourced from other parts of the country.”

While Reyes obtains his clays from many different areas, most are from four main locales: a riverbed about a kilometer from his home, upstate at Huajuapan de León, the town of Santa María Cuquila, and from Zacatecas, northwest of the nation’s capital. Each compound has different qualities. His Zacatecan clay is strong and has a sandy texture, making it suitable for sculpting his large, almost life-size human figures; more utilitarian pieces such as plates and cups are made with earth from Cuquila; pieces which he intends to burnish are sculpted from clay from Huajuapan de León; and he mixes local soil with the Zacatecan earth to yield a more malleable and easily workable clay.

For colors, Reyes often looks to other parts of the nation so as to enable him to obtain the variety he needs. “That painting hanging in our kitchen provides a good example of the range of colors I derive from combining different earths. Many of my paints come from the environment. I brought a kilo of clay from Chihuahua and used it to make paint for that male figure looking skyward. That white is an oxide.” Indeed the breadth of colors he is able to create for use on both his sculptures and his paintings is remarkable.

Manuel’s canvases are generally “mixed technique” as he refers to them, a combination of oil, acrylic and natural earth. Depending on the inspiration for a particular work, and the imagery he seeks to convey, the order and manner of application and the texture and origin of the soil applied, will vary.

Reyes goes on to explain the sexual imagery captured in many pieces from his current crop of sculptures: “I’ve been doing a fair number with nude males since 2005, not initially by specific design, but rather because that’s what is often depicted in pre-Hispanic art and representations of day-to-day activities, and that’s the kind of work that I’ve enjoyed doing over the past three years. When you look at the earliest Zapotec clay figures, and in fact those dating to Olmec and earlier times, that’s what my ancestors were creating. A number of sculptures portray hope and prayer as well, so much a part of ancient times, with head looking upward to the heavens and hands raised.” When questioned about the over-representation in his figures of males with dangling phalluses, Reyes points to a couple of female pieces: “Look at that female warrior over there. But notice the belt I made for her, with penises hanging from it, her trophies.”

Reyes readily acknowledges that this is still a business, his livelihood, and when gay male collectors began taking an interest in this phase of his artistic development, it motivated him to continue with it and further experiment with the theme of male sexuality as depicted in the codices and sculptures of earlier civilizations.

But Manuel’s work also reflects his personal interests and passions, his reverence for Oaxaca’s present day rich cultural traditions, and his eclecticism whereby he’s prepared to push the outer boundary of what’s traditionally considered art, at times combining aestheticism with pure functionality: “I know a really good carpenter here in Yanhuitlan, and thought of combining our two trades, sort of as a fun project. I asked him to make me a cabinet with shelves and doors. I painted it and then put six mask tiles, each with a fair bit of relief, on the door panels. It came out really funky and a collector bought it within a couple of weeks of when I’d finished it.

Reyes has begun experimenting with masks as an art form. Their use at fiestas and for parades is common practice in Oaxaca, the tradition dating back perhaps 3,000 years, when permanent settlements were first established in the region. He pays tribute to the ritualistic use of masks with one of his sculptures, a marcher holding a mask in front of his face, still a common sight at Oaxacan celebrations today.

On a recent visit to Reyes’ home, the music of Lou Reed was playing. Rock, blues and other genres of the 60’s and 70’s are included in this extraordinary man’s list of delights. And of course, they are reflected in his work. He’s created clay painted figures of John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, simply as a way of paying homage to some of his rock idols. Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven was the inspiration for one of his more “traditional” sculptures, with four men each climbing up a rung of a ladder made of reinforced steel covered with twine, each step framed by horn-shaped clouds.

More recently Reyes has become interested in depicting vestiges of the material culture of his indigenous forebears, combining his gift as a skilled artist with the work of an applied archaeologist. For example he recently found a potsherd with a painted design, and through extrapolation has created an entire, accurately crafted three-footed vessel.

Through his art, Manuel Reyes is continually looking for new modes of self-expression, while at the same time reflecting on diverse cultures, both present-day and of the near and distant past. He’s a true renaissance man whose golden touch will undoubtedly, over time, become appreciated by an increased following. The exhibitions of his work in Huajuapan de León and at the Museo del Arte Popular in San Bartolo Coyotepec where one piece remains on permanent display, pale compared to what’s in store for Manuel … and art aficionados around the globe.

Alvin Starkman received his Masters in Social Anthropology in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School, thereafter embarking upon a successful career as a litigator until 2004. Alvin, while still a good-standing member of the Law Society of Upper Canada, now resides with his wife Arlene in Oaxaca, where he writes, leads small group tours to the villages, markets, ruins and other sights, is a consultant to documentary film companies, and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), providing the comfort and service of lodging in a Oaxaca hotel, with the personal touch of a quaint country inn.