Variations on a Mexican Dream, 1969
This is a series of twenty-four pen and India ink drawings on green-brown Canson paper, all produced in 1969, less than one year after returning to Toronto after approximately two years in Mexico. Originally there had been twenty-five drawings, but several years later I decided that one drawing did not fit into the theme of the series. This is one of several bodies of work in the late 1960s and 1970s, that I will not break up.
The drawings are eight inches square on 15 x 11-inch paper. Several of them were exhibited at the De Santos Gallery in Islington, Ontario in 1971. Then the whole series was exhibited at the Felipe Gutierrez Gallery, National Autonomous University of Mexico in 2003.
The drawings are gestures of nostalgia, longing, attempts at understanding the aura of Mexico and the sense of loss I felt for the love I left behind in that country. The drawings are attempts at visual poems, or perhaps illustration of my appreciations of that country, as suggested by the romantic and complex quality of the titles.
