Artist Bernardo Cantu joins the MAC in honoring the bicentennial celebration of Mexico’s independence from Spain. Cantu’s art mines dualistic tensions and harmonies between brute and elegant, baroque and minimal, high and low art. So, rather than reflecting something that currently exists, his work reflects content from an alternate reality. Cantu’s interests emerge from Rascuachismo and its associations with low-fi sound utilized in indie music culture and kitsch. He utilizes both traditional and non-traditional art materials, with a focus on second hand materials. Being a third generation Mexican American Bernardo’s art is inspired by various disparate elements; some of which are; the strong interchanges between Texan and Mexican cultures and the multi-dimensional mysterious nature of reality. These paintings act as relics, from a twisted sci-fi meets the barrio alternate reality. Product of a larger decolonizing enterprise, that functions from a mentality of what Walter Mignolo, who studies semiotics, calls border gnosis; knowledge developed at the borderland, that takes form at the margins of the modern Western world.
Bernardo Cantu hails from the Coastal Bend Area of the south Texas region, growing up mostly in Bishop Texas and Kingsville Texas. Cantu recently received his M.F.A. in Painting & Drawing at The University of North Texas. Cantu has exhibited in galleries in Dallas, Arlington and Denton. He is currently living and working in Denton, Texas.