Agora Gallery presents the original work of three gifted South American artists, Jose Ma Martinez, LuisaElena Betancourt and Juan Jose Prada, will be on display at Agora Gallery, NYC from February 10 through March 1, 2012.

Entrance is free and all art lovers are encouraged to attend, enjoy and meet some of the artists whose works make up this delightful show.

Exhibition Dates: February 10, 2012 – March 1, 2012
Reception: Thursday, February 16, 2012, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Gallery Location: 530 West 25th St, New York City
Gallery Hours: Tues – Sat, 11a.m. - 6 p.m.
Event URLs:
Jose Ma Martinez – http://www.agora-gallery.com/artistpage/Jose_Ma_Martinez.aspx
LuisaElena Betancourt - http://www.agora-gallery.com/artistpage/LuisaElena_Betancourt.aspx
Juan Jose Prada - http://www.agora-gallery.com/artistpage/Juan_Jose_Prada.aspx


About the Artists:
About LuisaElena Betancourt
Subjects of quotidian daily life are the basic features of Jose Ma. Martinez’s modestly sized realistic works of oil on canvas. The artist’s color saturated, lively portraiture is imbued with equal parts drama, wit and highly charged symbolism. Enlivened by the magical sheen of Latin America, especially its celebratory culture associated with death, sensuality, beauty and decay, these works traverse the fertile territory of Mexican cultural lore with contemporary global flair. A painter of the ‘wide horizons’ and ‘multiple realities’ which give meaning to art as life, Martinez names the canonic masters as deeply influential, as well as the greats of Latin America including Mexican artists such as Juan Rulfo, Gabriel Figueroa, Hermenegildo Bustos and his long time teacher Spanish master Antonio Lopez.
Jose Ma. Martinez was born in a fertile village of central Mexico and currently lives in Mexico City. He is the recipient of numerous artistic honors in Mexico and in Spain and has exhibited throughout his native country.


About LuisaElena Betancourt
Born in Venezuela and raised in New York City and Ontario, Canada, LuisaElena Betancourt communicates through form and color to explore the emotional and political components of a myriad of contemporary and cultural issues, as well as the triumphs and tragedies experienced on her own life’s journey. Her works are created as a series and combine multiple media and artistic styles. Essentially, she fuses a modernist abstract European style with her cultural artistic roots, drawing on the vibrant and saturated colors and referential images of her native Venezuela. Taking a postmodernist approach, she works in turn on large format acrylic paintings, digital collages, and giccle, the combination of acrylic painting highlighted by digital details. Betancourt’s paintings and prints are magical works of pure expressionism, dazzling in color and dynamic in form. In compositions both primitive and edgy, she delves into the emotional heart of her subjects, demonstrating the depth of feeling available in even the simplest of forms.
LuisaElena Betancourt currently lives and works in Maracaibo, Venezuela.

Visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwckU8IZLLU to view a video about the artist.


About Juan Jose Prada
The intriguing works of South American artist Juan Jose Prada are structured around one guiding central idea – that of classical structure, the kind that inspired the timeless sculpture of Ancient Greece and Rome. In fact, in earlier years Prada was more attracted by sculpture than by paint, and he was strongly influenced by renowned sculptors Gustav Vigeland and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. However, his works demonstrate his mastery of the media he has chosen more recently – oil on canvas and pencil on paper. The artist tackles such demanding subjects as invulnerability and human archetypes, delving into the structures humans create to understand themselves and the world, just as he creates formal structures to act as the basis of his work. Prada speaks of the inspiration of past masters such as Picasso, Ingres and in particular Leonardo de Vinci. Yet his awareness of his Latin cultural heritage, combined with an understanding of art history, makes his style truly unique.
Juan Jose Prada currently lives and works in South America.