Roberto Gil de Montes “El Pescador” “Los poetas en el mar” “Up” Venice Biennale Art Exhibition

Roberto Gil de Montes was born in 1950 in Mexico, where he lives and works. His works are exhibited at the Corderie of the Arsenal in Venice.

Roberto Gil de Montes “El Pescador”

Painting - Oil on Canvas (196 x 257 cm) 2020
El Pescador is a fisherman without a line, a fishing net, or a boat.

He is a young man with an intense gaze, lying in an elegant pose with his feet still immersed in the azure of the primordial liquid; he emerges from the bright background of the large orange shell that is slowly approaching the shore.

He lets himself be carried by the waves, thoughtful, holding a book in his hand resting on a bouquet of white flowers that he collected among those that fall from the sky.

Here is the birth of the Poet, inspired by Botticelli's famous “Birth of Venus”.

Roberto Gil de Montes “Los Poetas en el Mar”

Painting - Oil on Canvas 2021
Two men bathe in the shallow blue water, standing in front of the brown line of the shore invaded by the jungle of lush, colourful vegetation, while the head of a third wearing a jaguar mask emerges just below the water.

The jaguar is a feline native to South America, an excellent hunter, mighty and fast that is part of the mythology of pre-Columbian civilizations; the diver in the jaguar mask has a symbolic dimension.

It is the artist's figure who discovers treasures by immersing himself in the cultural past of his country, Mexico.

Roberto Gil de Montes “Up”

Painting - Oil on Canvas 2021
At first glance, “Up” presents a head-down portrait, an upside-down portrait that you have to mentally put back to the right side to realize that it is a young man with delicate features who is swept away by the current of a river.

His handsome face and hands are still out of the water, but he knows and accepts what lies ahead, as his body is already under the swirling waves that sweep him away amid a myriad of brightly coloured flowers.

“Up” is a beautiful romantic painting that recalls the tragic “Death of Ophelia” painted in 1852 by John Everett Millais, where the desperate girl drowns in the water of a river, with her long hair floating on the surface and eyes ajar, waiting for death among the flowers that accompany her.

Roberto Gil de Montes, El Pescador

Roberto Gil de Montes, Los poetas en el mar

Roberto Gil de Montes, Up