Mexico's Toledo April 30, 2010

A great artist, a great assimilator, and hugely prolific, Francisco Toledo is inspired by Mexican culture, his native state of Oaxaca, and his Zapotic heritage. Using surrealist influences and a deep knowledge of printmaking techniques--experienced during a five-year stay in Europe where he worked in the shop of the eccentric British master, Stanley William Hayter--Toledo's art shows an appreciation for the aesthetics of nature. Indigenous animals, whose countenances often invoke a sensual mystery (bats, iguanas, toads, and coyotes), interact with human beings in a world where all are equal in nature and equally disregarding of nature's laws.