Latino Artists Break Out Downtown

If downtown won’t come to the Latino artists of Fair Haven, the artists are going to take Fair Haven downtown.

That’s the strategy behind a new moveable feast of artists from the range of Latin American countries reflected in New Haven’s artistic population. It’s called ​“Latino Modern Avant-Garde Art,” and it hA opened at Barracuda at Chapel and Park.

The show features the work of Sarahi Zacatelco, Joel Luis Celi, and Israel Sanchez, organized with the help of a new marketing group in town called losophic.

It will be on view up until mid-September.

Sanchez and Zacatelco have had work in exhibitions mounted at Arte’ Inc., the Latino cultural center and gallery on Grand Avenue at the approach to the bridge. (Click here for that story.) Sanchez said that while he and his fellow artists have only positive things to say about Arte, ​“we want to show more in the heart of New Haven.”

To that end the artists put their heads together, and with the help of the folks at losophic, they decided to research Latino-owned businesses downtown and approach them about hanging art.

Two months ago these artists and others had their works up at Pacifico on College Street. It was enough of a success that they tried Barracuda, Salazar’s wildly successful bistro that opened eight months ago.

Sanchez said the idea is to show the wide range of styles and countries represented by what appears to be a new wave, or wavelet, of young artists trying to find, or to create, their own new niche.

Zacatelco, who hails from Mexico, takes a different tack: ​“I think more about my life in New Haven,” she said. Her work has nothing to do with that of the famous self-portraitist Frida Kahlo, whom Zacatelco called ​“Saint Frida” with a smile. Pressed by a reporter who that night seemed to be haunted by the anxiety of influences, Zacatelco named David Siquieros, the social realist and muralist of the 1930s.

I asked Celi how he works on the balance of elements that go into his energetic canvases. ​“When I draw, I think about the colors of my country, Ecuador,” he said. ​“The people, the faces.” The artist he most looks up to is someone most Americans likely have never heard of: Oswaldo Guayasamin.

The moveable visual feast will next visit Barcelona on Temple Street, another Latino-owned business.

Ultimately Sanchez said they’d like to find a more permanent space so more Latino artists can show their work to more people, including non-Latinos, and in the center of town. ​“The Latino artists who come to New Haven work hard, but need an opportunity to share,” he added. ​“If we don’t sell, that’s okay too. We move on. Eventually we’ll find a place. Little steps.”

Yet there was every indication a sale was in the making. Barracuda owner Salazar pronounced the exhibition ​“beautiful” and full of ​“passion.” She had her eye on three of Zacatelco’s portraits that were hanging high above her, visible from inside and through the window out onto Chapel Street.

“I’m excited. I’m going to buy them,” she said.