The Tampa Museum of Art will present an exhibition celebrating 15 years of the artist Pepe Mar. Pepe Mar: Myth and Magic will include fifty objects from Pepe Mar’s diverse practice in collage, sculpture, ceramics, and painting. Mar has developed a highly unique personal style in which he equally mixes and innovates craft, Op art, painting, and identity politics. The artist often explores themes related to cultural isolation and identity, rituals and mythologies, and consumer consumption and excess.
Who is Pepe Mar?
Born in 1977 in Reynosa, Mexico, close to the Mexico/United States border, Pepe Mar spent his childhood living between two cultures. His family moved to Brownsville, Texas during his teenage years and he started making art in his family’s garage. As a young artist, he purchased inexpensive materials such as feathers and beads from craft stores to help create his art. He received his BFA from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. And earned his MFA from Florida International University in Miami. The artist lives and works in Miami, Florida.
Pepe Mar: Myth and Magic
Pepe Mar: Myth and Magic highlights 15-years of the artist’s practice, from 2006 to 2023. The exhibit is presented as a Gesamtkunstwerk — German, meaning “total work of art”. It has been conceptualized as an immersive artwork with the objects on view complemented by the artist’s vibrant fabric walls, plush poufs for sitting, and lush orange carpet. Each work is uniquely different yet incorporates Mar’s signature materials. Things such as paper cut-outs from magazines, catalogues, and books, decorative textile motifs, clay vessels and figurines. There is also found objects discovered by the artist in shops and thrift stores throughout the world.
Mar opens the exhibition with a sculpture garden and introduces the figure “Paprika,” the artist’s alter ego. Paprika anchors Mar’s work and represents the personal and the Other.
Pepe Mar: Myth and Magic features 60 works of art from public and private collections across the United States. The works on view highlight Mar’s influences—art history, Mexican artifacts and architecture, fashion, science fiction, and pop culture. However, the exhibition also speaks to the artist’s biography. Living between the border of the US and Mexico, and later establishing roots in Miami, Florida, the art on view reveals the connections between self and site, and material as metaphor. As seen in Pepe Mar: Myth and Magic, the works from the past 15 years reflect the evolution of an artist. As well as a transformative return to his creative roots.
The accompanying catalogue Pepe Mar: Myth and Magic will be published in Fall 2023.