ARTIST OVERVIEW
Gustavo Ramos Rivera (b. 1940–) is an abstract painter whose work is recognized for its emotional and visual intensity and its highly individualized iconography. Through the use of brilliant color and a highly personal symbology, Ramos Rivera has created a unique language that is written throughout his paintings, monotypes, and collages. This singular expression functions on both an intellectual and emotional level and its deployment is reminiscent of the work of Paul Klee, Joan Miró, and Cy Twombly.1 It also harkens back to the pre-Columbian Mesoamerican art and architecture of Ramos Rivera’s native Mexico.
Like his signage, the dazzling, intense colors floating on Ramos Rivera's canvases reference his cultural past while remaining grounded in his present day environment. His work follows the thread of 20th-century Mexican painting from Rufino Tamayo to Francisco Toledo, melding this tradition with that represented by San Francisco Bay Area abstract painters Frank Lobdell, Manuel Neri, and Richard Diebenkorn. The colors and drawn symbols in each work advance and recede throughout a particular sequence, and, when viewed as a whole, can be "read" much like a personal diary.2
Ramos Rivera’s work has evolved over the past three decades; the dark, tar-laden canvases of the 1980s have a brooding intensity and represent internal states of mind more so than his later works. In the 1990s, Ramos Rivera began working with color fields punctuated by simple, almost childlike hieroglyphics. Over time, he has broken down these fields and is now juxtaposing large areas of richly laid color to create images that radiate pure sensation.
A master printmaker and collagist, Ramos Rivera’s works on paper equal the scope and intensity of his works on canvas. In his large monotypes, his skill as a colorist is readily apparent as he builds up translucent layers of color. Their atmospheric quality and linear structure reveal Ramos Rivera’s affinity for Richard Diebenkorn, especially the Ocean Park series.
Gustavo Ramos Rivera was born in Mexico and immigrated to the United States in 1969. He has lived in San Francisco for over 30 years. In 1992 he received a Fleishacker Foundation Eureka Fellowship. A retrospective exhibition of Ramos Rivera's paintings and works on paper was held at the Ex-Convento del Carmen in Guadalajara, Mexico in 2005, and traveled to other venues in Mexico. In January 2006, the San Jose Museum of Art presents a retrospective exhibition of paintings, with companion exhibitions at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art and other venues, which will tour to the Fresno Art Museum in the summer of 2006. A comprehensive monograph accompanies the exhibition."
1. Bruce Nixon, "Everything Is Possible: Paintings by Gustavo Ramos Rivera" in Gustavo Ramos Rivera (San Francisco: San Jose Museum of Art, 2005).
2. Ibid.
