"app 4 reawakening 3rd eye 2"
A Previous Featured Painting
" app 4 reawakening 3rd eye 2 "
acrylic, pencils, ink & oil on board
28 x 22 in © 2012 Gabriel Navar
Respect, admiration and a sense of intrigue is what comes to mind when I think about the epic and sophisticated Maya culture. I was inspired to paint a parody of a detail of one of the most well-known Maya frescoes, the after-math of a battle in an archaeological site called Bonampak in the Southern Mexican state of Chiapas, very close to the Guatemala border. The painting (located in room 2 of an important temple in the site) depicts Bonampak lords standing over dead and dying captives on a staircase (the captives in the original plead for their lives and some are depicted in the process of being tortured). In my version, some of the wise ancient Maya are engaged or exchanging information through their "smart" devices.
In many ways, the Maya have shared their knowledge with generations of artists, students, professors, the media, cooks, farmers, warriors, time-keepers, astronomers, astrologists, cosmologists, scientists, architects, shamen, soothsayers, and so on, for many hundreds of years. Lately, for many years, the Maya have received much attention and notoriety for "predicting" the (doomsday, apocalypse) "end-of-days" where one of their many complex calendars reaches completion (since its inception alledgedly in 3114 BC) on the Winter Solstice of 2012. Personally, I believe it will initiate a new beginning for humankind and a new era of evolution, hope and deep learning! This painting, my first of 2012, is an ode to a great civilization that continues to inspire and ignite my imagination as I share my enthusiasm and knowledge with my students in a course that I've been teaching for several years now at Allan Hancock College (Santa Maria, CA), Mexican Art History.
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more Featured Paintings
Visit my Current Featured Painting "app 4 disgruntled days". It was currently added to my site on April 2013. Also, visit my Archived Featured Paintings, I have about 20 Previous Featured Paintings. Each one of them has a story, a description about their creation as well as some background about their form, content and symbolism. Looking at the Previous Featured Paintings page I realize that I have had a wide range of interests over time in the figurative, narrative work that I have created over the years. I hope you can appreciate that an element that ties my work together is my desire to create thought provoking compositions that involve the figure, rich colors, and, often, the human theater.
If you enjoy the Featured Paintings know that it is updated three times per year on April, August and December. Please do return !
© Gabriel Navar 1989 - 2017 
You may contact me directly if you are interested in acquiring my artwork.