Gallery showcases perseverance
Artist took difficult, unlikely path
Rene Soto is a gallery owner, a magazine editor and an artist.
He is also an immigrant, and a physical education teacher in his home country of Guatemala. He came to America only seven years ago and did not have access to simple supplies such as paint and canvas for much of his life. His mother died two years ago, a year after he lost two brothers.
Soto’s taken a difficult and unlikely path to Norwalk, and through whatever hardships he has faced, art has helped him persevere.
“Art has saved my life in many ways,” Soto said Thursday at his recently opened Rene Soto Gallery. “When I have nightmares, sometimes I go to paint and I make horrible things through the painting. It’s the best way to show things you can’t say. All the stress goes away.”
Weverson Ponte shares Soto’s belief in the ability to transcend fear through art.
“Being courageous is not about not having fears, it’s about being able to face your fears,” Ponte said.
An architect, Zumba instructor and artist, Ponte organized “Emotional Explosion. A Community Art Project.” Using a soon- to- be demolished home in Westport as canvas, Ponte and a group of other local artists, including Soto, graffitied their fears onto almost every square inch of the house one day in April. Then, symbolically, the house and fears were torn down.
It was the first in what Ponte hopes will be a series of community- based art installations that encourage personal growth.
“We’re calling this a movement of sorts. We’re trying to encourage people to face their fears and improve their lives,” Ponte said.
As of Sept. 1, the second step in Ponte’s movement will debut at the Rene Soto Gallery.
The exhibition, dubbed the “Strength Showcase” by Ponte, will feature the same artists that tagged the Westport home, showcased for a month in one of the gallery’s two exhibition spaces.
The gallery show, like “Emotional Explosion,” is partly improvisational, in that the artists are asked to create a work on a theme specifically for the show. The result, sometimes, is anxiety felt by the artists as they struggle with the concept.
“When I did the house, I had no idea until the day of. I’m feeling that now, but today I had a few ideas pop up,” artist Jessica Ortega said. On the day she was to graffiti the house, Ortega said she went in with an idea of the color scheme, but without a concept for her piece. The result was a large- scale work about self- advocacy, in which she painted “No Means No” above the house’s garage doors.
Ortega, who is also an art therapist and Ponte’s girlfriend, said she’s still unsure what she’ll create for the upcoming show.
“I’m just struggling to identify what I would consider strength,” Ortega said.
Ponte, too, is juggling several ideas for the show.
“I’ve been finding words to kind of describe my strengths,” he said.
On the house, he painted a cosmic design that to him represented risking failure by stepping into the unknown. For the gallery show, Ponte hopes the artists will be able to communicate their stories of triumph over fear in the process.
At least in part, Soto’s goal for the gallery — to foster creativity in the community — mirrors Ponte’s.
“We want to encourage more artists to create. That makes people happy and we need more happy people in the world,” Soto said. “The whole idea is positivity.”