Selma Hayek, Sin City, Fire Bellies and Angels – D. Dominick Lombardi

Angel Rodriguez-Diaz, Rey Misterio… Who are you?… Come out, 2005. Acrylic and oil on canvas. 64 x 54ins.

Three shows fill Blue Star Contemporary Arts Center forming this sort of contemporary Tex-Mex overview. In the main gallery hangs 14 of the 16 large acrylic paintings created by two artists. Half of this duo is one of this country’s leading Mexican-American artists and muralists, George Yepes. The other, the stellar Austin-based director of El Mariachi, Spy Kids and Sin City fame, Robert Rodriquez.

Their sole subject in these paintings is the classically beautiful Selma Hayek, the "Solementre Salma" series, who is viewed head on and looking very regal and omnipotent. Each portrait, despite the sameness of a linear rendering of the movie star’s face and neckline is embellished with a variety of dazzling colors and symbols.

The symbolism mostly leads back to the two artist’s Latino heritage. For instance, the butterflies in some of the works point to the great writer Carlos Fuentes’ Terra Nostra, which features an Aztec Goddess who wears a crown of living butterflies. Then there is the Virgin of Guadeloupe who makes an appearance as a dual image in one work. There’s a prevalent spinal column in another, a not-so-obvious link, Ms. Hayek played Frida Kahlo in the movie. And in another painting there appears a dagger-filled sacred heart that inspires many Latino tattoos and symbols.

Two works deviate most from this formula of Latino linkage. One is #3, which features a Jasper Johns/Robert Rauschenberg type of expressive coloration of the surface and #1, where only the eyes of Ms. Hayek remain in a stormy, Turner-esque and very dramatic atmosphere. The more theatrical setting of #1 and the Pop art reference of #3 may be the influence of Mr. Rodriquez before he was absorbed more completely by the process of Mr. Yepes.

It is also helpful to note that these two artists created all the works in an airplane hanger, in just two months, working daily and into the wee hours of the night. Hence, there is a freshness and immediacy to the works that can be a bit overwhelming. Despite the show being a bit too over-hung, the gallery takes on the feeling of a temple where its otherwise banal concrete columns amplify that temple effect.

The next two rooms at Blue Star are filled with works by grad students from San Antonio’s three colleges: Trinity University, University of Texas, San Antonio and the University of the Incarnate Word. The exhibition’s title is "Fire in the Belly," which implies burgeoning, restless talent. Overall, this implication holds up. The three standouts in this particular exhibition are George Zupp, whose eye-catching Tunnel, a 2006 oil on canvas, features a naively painted and composed brick train passageways had this reviewer smiling. Joseph Cohen’s From the Sea combines aggressive additive and reductive painting techniques yields a mesmerizing effect akin to the works of Andre Masson who too created stirring Surreal vistas using textural techniques. I also like the work of Kristy Perez, who offers up a work titled 50 Yard Line, a Barbie-fied, pink version that is uniquely disarming.

Then there is Gallery 4, a project room type space that always seems to feature a well-presented one-person show. This time around it’s Angel Rodriquez-Diaz with an exhibition titled "Retrartos…Between You and I," featuring a few vignettes of the artist acting out three stereotypical icons: the Latin lover, the performer and the masked wrestler. The way in which each work is staged, with the subjects painted against this sort of off register, frilly-fancy-floral wallpaper, challenges those preconceptions adding humanity and humor to the stage.