A blank white wall is slashed angrily with red paint. The wall seems to bleed through the jagged sharp lines. Crimson roses erupt from the center and have been delicately placed atop the jagged lines to create a soft contrast.
On the floor below, people walk through the low-hanging vines of black wires that hold glowing red objects at their ends. The objects give an eerie Kubrick quality to the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the visual arts and are the opening piece of Maximo Gonzalez’s exhibit “Magnificent Warning.”
The exhibit was showcased last year and was the inspiration for the name behind the Maximo Art Society, a UTEP student organization that focuses on creating networking and exposure opportunities for artists.
According to Francisco Melendez, senior graphic design major and event planner for MAS, Maximo re-presented the ideals the organization wanted to base in themselves.
“Maximo had just come in and we had been very inspired by him. He knows what it’s like to be a beginning artist,” Melendez said. “He was just very inspirational and we kind of just wanted to base ourselves on those ideas.”
Jorge Murillo, senior graphic design and metals major and president of MAS, said the organization started last year by a group of friends that wanted to make art students more known in the UTEP community.
“It was a group of us that were interested in having an art group because we felt a little left out,” Murillo said. “We wanted to make the art student more present in the university.”
One of the goals of the organization is to develop professional opportunities for its members through exposure.
“What we want the members to take is to be able to be exposed to the professional world, allowing them to experience the real world for artists,” Melendez said.
MAS has attempted to do this by providing workshops for their members, showcasing their work in galleries and by exposing members to professional artists.
Last year, MAS members were able to showcase their work in a Chalk the Block gallery, an event in which artists create murals out of Chalk on the sidewalk. According to their website, the event has drawn in 30,000 people annually and premiered over 200 artists.
“Chalk the Block was the first big event and we let other people in El Paso know about us,” Murillo said. “We had a gallery space and E.P. natives were able to see student work.”
This year, MAS led the Salon de Refuses, a gallery that showcased the work of students who did not get into the Annual Juried Student Arts Exhibition at the Rubin Center.
“For people that didn’t make it into the student art show, we helped them get into this makeshift student gallery at the fox fine arts to still get that opportunity to show their work,” Mendez said.
The organization has also teamed up with the Rubin Center to provide direct contact with professional artists exhibited at the center.
“I think the Rubin Center has been the group that has helped us the most to achieve our mission to be a catalyst for the arts in the community,” said Alejandra Urquide, senior graphic design and advertising major and historian for MAS.
One of the opportunities the Rubin Center helped MAS achieve was having a private lunch with one of the jurors for the Annual Juried Student Arts Exhibition. This allowed members to have a one-on-one conversation with a professional artist.
The Rubin Center also allowed MAS to have a reception on the opening night of the student exhibition and provided the organization with contacts to attain jurors for the Salon de Refuses exhibition.
The element of exposure and networking is what has sparked interest in the organization among UTEP students.
“That’s part of everyone’s goal, is to get known. It’s your way of communicating with others,” said Angel Marin, sophomore graphic design major.
The organization has also been able to establish connections at UTEP. They helped with the decorations for Queer Prom and participated in UTEP’s first Liberal Arts Street Festival.
Currently, MAS has around 40 members and 344 likes on Facebook. MAS is not limited to art majors and welcomes any UTEP student interested in art. The fee for joining is $15.
“We really want this to happen, we really want this to be something that lasts and that helps not just this generation of art students, but the ones that keep coming,” Mendez said.
Maria Esquinca may be reached at [email protected].
