Byron Galvez
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Byron Galvez (b. 1941) Mexican artist.
He paints in an abstract figurative style that borders on abstract expressionism. The artist was influenced by Picasso's and Braque's cubism of 1907, by color blending from his Mexican heritage, and by African, Oceanian, and pre-Columbian sculpture.
One of Byron's most notable and impressive works is the 345,000 square foot (32,000 m²) mosaic located in the David Ben-Gurion Cultural Park in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico. It is the largest in the world.
In many of the standing figure compositions Byron moves closer to abstraction than the original cubists did. But the balance between the figurative and the abstract in his unique visual images is always under control. Preoccupied with texture, Byron uses a secret method of applying thick oil paint to his canvases and additional texture plates to his graphics. The artist does not consider himself rebellious but rather an artist beyond rebellion who has integrated the themes and styles into his time. In style, Byron has gone back to the great analytic cubist canvases of Braque and Picasso. He constructs his elongated, mostly standing figures out of sharply defined planes to which he adds color to the darkness. Energy, verve, and the colorful movement --so much a part of Mexican life are found in all of Byron's work. Byron is an individual, original, and visually satisfying artist. He is indebted to Mexican mural painting, to 20th-century European art including expressionism and fauvism, and to the intense social passions of the Mexican people.
Byron's works contain humor and satire based on his Indian and Spanish heritage. Byron is a colorist. He dislikes using great amounts of color but rather emphasizes harmony of a single color. This creates a luminescence and vibrancy in his work.
Since Byron is first and foremost a sculptor, he paints like a sculptor. Byron's works are both contemporary and traditional.
