Dino Aranda is a Nicaraguan-born, American artist who was part of a group of Latin artists living in New York and Washington D.C. that made significant contributions to the contemporary art of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, bringing Latin American art to an American audience.
Following his studies at Managua’s National School of Fine Arts, Aranda’s work began with the Praxis Galeria Nicaragua, which was formed in 1963 by a group of artists who had studied at the National School of Fine Arts under Rodrigo Penalba. Penalba studied art in Mexico, Spain and Rome in the 1920s and ‘30s and brought his knowledge back to Nicaragua, where he was appointed director of the National School of Fine Arts. The group of talented students from the National School of Fine Arts establishing Praxis included Cesar Izquierdo, Leonel Vanegas, Leoncio Saenz, Luis Urbina, Orlando Sabalvarro, Genaro Lugo and Dino Aranda, the youngest member of the group. Alejandro Arostequi, who was studying abroad, returned to Nicaragua to help co-found the group. In her definitive work, Art of Latin America: 1900–1980, the leading Argentine art critic, Marta Traba states that Praxis Galeria established Managua, Nicaragua as one of the leading centers for Latin American art.
Inspired by Art Informel, which encompassed several abstract movements in Europe following World War II and focused on spontaneity to reveal an artist’s intuition and subconscious state of mind, Paxis was distinct from the geometric abstraction that dominated Latin America’s southern cone. The influence of Art Informel can be seen in the catalog introductions of the early Praxis exhibitions.
According to the catalog from the First Anniversary Exhibition of Praxis Galeria, more than 20 national artists presented about 50 works that represented different concerns and trends in Nicaraguan art. The criteria for choosing the artists presented was quite broad. The exhibition included both renown artists within and outside of the country, those of international fame, as well as young artists still studying at the National School of Fine Arts. All the exhibiting artists were Nicaraguan, with the exception of Cesar Isquierdo, who was born in Guatemala but came to Nicaragua to study under Penalba. What they all had in common, according to the catelog, was being active, producing art with a self-assurance that is demanding and renovating, searching eagerly with a great spirit of experimentation, with forms of expression that reflected the individual artist’s sensitivities and concerns. The show confirmed the predominance of abstract art over figurative art, using new techniques and materials instead of traditional ones.
However, some characteristics are uniquely Nicaraguan. In the abstract paintings, there is an inclination toward vulnerability and sadness that is translated in dark colors such as blacks and grays, and the use of rustic materials. In figurative paintings, themes such as death and misery prevailed – there were threadbare, skinny beings in an empty adverse world. The works demonstrated a taste for textures, and earth, stone and metal materials. There was also a trend toward monumentality and harmony of values, with contrasting textures rather than colors. These works exhibited qualities of austerity and sobriety. They reflect the Nicaraguan situation under the Somoza regime.
The First Anniversary Exhibition revealed that Nicaraguan painting was a young and vigorous, imaginative and profound, painting that was just becoming aware of itself, which did not have a pictorial tradition, and was produced without museums or other overwhelming influences. The catalog states that Nicaraguan artists have as a guide only their own creation, their inner being, and the physical and human landscape that surrounds them.
In May 1965 Praxis Galeria Nicaragua held another group exhibition of the permanent Praxis painters. Titled “Seven Nicaraguan Painters,” the group show included works by Aranda, Arostegui, Guillen, Izquierdo, Lugo, Saenz, and Vanegas. Aranda sent works from his adopted home in Washington, D.C. The catalog description, written by Alejandro Arostegui and Cesar Antonio Izquierdo, highlights the struggle of the Praxis artists in defining and distinguishing the characteristics of Nicaraguan art during the mid-1960s.
Artostegui writes that since the First Anniversary Exhibition to the present group show members of Praxis have been enriched as individuals and as artists. As artists, they have refined their aesthetics and acquired more confidence, which is reflected in works that are more consistent and direct, denoting greater conviction and clarity of concept. The different personalities of each of the member artists have been accentuated until they have become unmistakable, reflecting an individual style. As individuals in their daily lives and contact with the public, they have been forced to greater reflection and self-criticism, which has resulted in a self-determination to portray concepts with greater clarity. Aristegui closes by stating that Praxis will continue in its effort to present to the public a living, sincere, authentic art, without concessions or formulas, hoping to contribute in this way to the development of an art that reflects Nicaragua and its people, with the artists’ truth and aspirations.
Izquierdo wrote about what it means to be an artist in Nicaragua. He writes that artistic activity involves projecting one’s intimate self and particular needs on others, and the roots of this need lie in the natural sensitive, aesthetic, analytic predisposition of the individual. As part of this process, the artist absorbs the intellectual content of his environment and society and adapts it to his creativity. Izquierdo notes that in the Nicaraguan environment at that time there is no collectively defined aesthetic expression. Therefore, each artist is limited to their own understanding and interpretation of the aesthetic and intellectual practices of great civilizations and developed countries. Contemporary painting in Nicaragua is not an escape but a realistic reflection of a concrete reality. The painter as an individual, whose aspirations may be weakened by the lack of stimulus in Nicaraguan society, has only the conviction of the sincerity of his work and its historical relationship to offer in his search of a true art.
This was the struggle of the group of young artists in defining an art movement that expressed the conditions in their country under the Somoza dictatorship.
