Beatriz Ezban

Posted on 23 January, 2018

Laura González Matute
 
 

Beatriz Ezban was born in Mexico City in 1955. She is part of the Judeo-Mexican community. She currently lives and works in Mexico City. From her beginnings as a painter she has been highly regarded in the visual arts world.

 
Trajectory
 
She has shown her work in 40 individual and over 90 collective exhibitions, both in Mexico and abroad. Noteworthy among them, two at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City, whence her work was selected among a group of 33 of the country’s most distinguished artists to be part of the Permanent Collection at the Residencia Presidencial de Los Pinos and at the Museo de Arte Moderno.
 
 
She has held individual exhibitions in Germany, Canada, Spain, the United States, France, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Poland, Romania and Serbia, among other countries.
 
 
Training
 
She attended the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Later she enrolled in the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado La Esmeralda, of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. In the late 70’s, early 80’s she came into contact with renowned painter Gilberto Aceves Navarro, with whom she improved her training working in his workshop at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas (now renamed Facultad de Artes y Diseño).
 
 
Her work is characterized by an artistic-creative practice in dialogue with the exact sciences. Derived from her studies in Philosophy, Beatriz Ezban conceives painting as a sort of theory of being and a theory of knowledge. After she began her arts studies, she received several invitations from a large number of countries to continue her creative training.
 
 

Exhibitions
 
In 1994 she travelled to Iceland, invited by the Artistic Community of Straummur, and in 1996 she took her exhibition El cuerpo del color to that country, as well as to Norway and Ireland, representing Mexico with the support of the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores. In 1998 she was awarded a grant by the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (Fonca), whith which she organized the individual exhibition Shoot! At the Galería Metropolitana in Mexico City, and later at the Galería Landucci, and in August, 1999, at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Aguascalientes, Mexico.
 
 

In 2002 she won the acquisition prize at the XI Bienal de Pintura Rufino Tamayo, and shortly afterwards she opened her exhibition Vértigos at the Galería Landucci in Mexico City.
 
 

In 2004 she had one of her most renowned exhibitions at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City, entitled Principio de incertidumbre, with over 30 large-format oil paintings. This exhibition toured the cities of Tampico, Zacatecas and Puebla. That same year she represented Mexico at the International Cultural Festival in Assilah, Morocco, where she produced two pieces that became part of the Permanent Collection of the Assilah Forum Foundation.
 
 

One of her main subjects, recurring in several of her works, is global warming. It has been said that her paintings deal with hurricanes and climate change. On this subject, in 2008, she held the exhibition Solutions Climatiques at the Syllabes D ´Art gallery in Montresor, Francia.
 
 

Between 2006 and 2010 her work was exhibited in several cities in the
United States, as a project called Campo unificado: la frontera, regarding migrant workers. It was shown in New York, Washington, San Antonio, Los Angeles and Denver. It finally toured several museums in the southern United States, such as the Las Cruces Art Museum in New Mexico; the Brownsville History Museum; the Villa Antigua Border Heritage Museum, in Laredo; the Latino Cultural Center, in Dallas; and the Casa de la Cultura Hispanoamericana, in Las Vegas. These showings earned her two commendations by the US Senate in 2009. The exhibition finished its tour at the Santa Fe Art Museum in New Mexico, in January, 2010. In 2013 it was shown at the Museo de la Cancillería de México, at the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores in Mexico City.
 
 

The artist says she chose the subject of this exhibition spurred by the immigration reform, as she felt empathy towards people forced to migrate to the United States, risking ther lives crossing dangerous marshes and woods, not to mention the abuse -both at the hands of “coyotes” and the police-suffered by children, women, young people and adults. The title, Campo unificado: la frontera (Unified Field: the Border) was hosen so as to project a proposal regarding different agents that can interact in harmony. For the artist, this exhibition was conceived as a denounciation of borders around the world as conflict zones. Shortly afterwards, also in 2013, she opened the exhibition Recalculando at the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, in Mexico City, with 19 works: 11 large-format oils, 6 drawings in silver enamel, and 2 intervened digital graphics. About this exhibition, critics remarked that her work has the virtue of upholding a commitment to painting vis à vis the contemporary world.
 
 

Awards and Honors
 
Juror, Sistema Nacional de Creadores, Fonca, Conaculta, Mexico (2012); Grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Estados Unidos (2011); Grant from the Sistema Nacional de Creadores, Fonca (2010); Commendation, US Senate, signed by Senator Harry Reid (Democrat), Senate Majority Leader, (2009); Commendation for her trajectory, US Senate, signed by Senator John Ensign, Republican, (2009); invitation to the Yaddo Residence for Artists, New York (2006); Guest Artist, 26 International Cultural Festival, Assilah, Morocco (2004); Acquisition Award, XI Bienal de Pintura Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City (2002); Grant from the Sistema Nacional de Creadores, Fonca (2001 and 2004); Programa de Residencias Artísticas México-Canadá, Fonca and Banff Center for the Arts, Canada (1999); Programa de Fomento a Proyectos y Coinversiones Culturales, Fonca, visual arts section (1998); Selection to the II Salón Nacional de Artes Visuales, Sección Bienal Bidimensional INBA, Centro Nacional de las Artes, Mexico City (1998); support by the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores and Fonca to organize the exhibition
 
 
El cuerpo del color
 
, touring north European countries (1996); Guest Artist at the Artistic Community of Straummur in Hafnarfjördur, Iceland (1994 and 1996); work selected for the Permanent Collection at the Residencia Oficial de Los Pinos, Mexico City (1993).

 
 

 
Works in national and international museums and in private collections
 

 
Museo de Arte Moderno, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes,

 

Mexico.

 

Permanent Collection, Residencia Oficial de los Pinos, Mexico.

 

Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, México.

 

Charles C. Bergman, President, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, United States.

 

Snohetta Architects, Norway.

 

Artús Palace Museum, Gdansk, Poland.

 

Hafnarfborg, Fine Arts Institute, Iceland.