Exploring the art of living in Merida: Galería Ponce Interiores and Adizzi’s Mundos Abstractos

Situated in the heart of Merida’s historic neighborhood Itzimna, only blocks away from one of the city’s most treasured cultural heritage sites:  La Iglesia de Itzimna, you can find Galeria H Ponce Interiores, a small, yet elegant and inviting gallery and interior design studio owned by renowned Meridian architect Henry Ponce. Ponce, whose architecture and interior designs have won both national and international awards including the Bienal de Arquitectura Mexicana and the American Property Awards out of England, is a much sought out architect among the foreigners who have the means to create their dream house. His gallery features custom designed furniture both original Ponce designs as well as replicas of 50’s style pieces made by artisans in his workshop. He also chooses a select few artists in the community to display plastic art in order for the visitor to get the full experience of what a Ponce interior might look like. If you have lived in Merida for any amount of time and you are a homeowner or move in circles of the homeowners, the mere statement “it’s a Ponce house” warrants no further explanation. It is an implication of the absolute utmost in architecture and interior design evoking visions of innovation, design, class and style.

PHOTO: Henry Ponce

“I go to the symphony and as the music plays, I start to see myself painting. I paint in my head throughout the show. Then I go home and create the paintings I had just dreamt of.”

I visited Ponce’s gallery for the first time on Thursday, invited to experience first-hand the opening reception of Italian artist Antonella Pozzo Adizzi’s exhibit Mundos Abstractos (Abstract Worlds). In this exhibition, Antonella works with contemporary materials mostly acrylic paint and acetate. Two pieces in this series are made with plaster and then painted over with acrylic. She creates most of her pictorial artwork using the reverse painting technique, an art form consisting of applying paint to the back of a piece of glass–acetate in Antonella’s case– and turning the glass or acetate over and viewing the painting from the front. This is a technique she used years ago in Los Angeles when working on an animated short film inspired by a Mayan legend and she was curious to explore it more in an abstract expressionism and abstract still life style. This technique has allowed her to discover a fantastic world of color, emotion and nature coming to life on the acetate. The collection includes vibrantly colored floral abstracts as well as expressionist pieces exposing earthly tones of gold, absolute blues and deep reds with various shapes, streaks and bubbles; the array of colors and textures seems to lift off the acetate and come towards you. In three pictures that particularly drew my attention, she uses predominantly rose, violet and crimson to unveil what I saw as radiant algae appearing as if swaying with the tide in the midst of the coral reef. Stunning.

As many of the locals and foreigners are well aware, Merida has a hidden treasure chest of talented artists from around the globe and it’s refreshing to get an inside peek into the art and design world. Antonella’s exhibit went on display in the beginning of July. The gallery also features the fascinating artwork of Favian Vergara.

By Stephanie Carmon for TYT

Stephanie Carmon, “language lover,” is an English and Spanish language professional with over 18 years of experience teaching and providing clients with effective communication skills. She works both online and in person with companies and individual learners from Mexico, Russia, U.S. and Canada as a freelance language consultant, translator, interpreter and teacher. She currently lives in Mérida, Yucatan.

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