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SAN DIEGO READER

Chula Vista Artist Gives Proceeds of Show to Tijuana Sculptor by Laura McNeal


Tijuana sculptor Armando Munoz Garcia makes women out of cement and steel, and those women, like Pygmalion’s statue, come to life. Munoz’s second sculpture, a huge mermaid near the Ensenada highway has attracted the financial and artistic support of San Diego artists like Greg Gutierrez and Robert Matheny.

Matheny also called Union-Tribune writer Welton Jones, who decided to do a story about Munoz. When artist Greg Gutierrez read the story, he sent Munoz a check and decided to give him 50 percent of the earnings from any paintings he sold in a show called “Toys as Sculpture.”

“I’m self-taught also,” Gutierrez says, “which is probably why I connected with Armando. I never studied art. I just woke up one morning about seven years ago and I knew I needed to paint.” At the time, Gutierrez was designing clothes. “I ran my own international clothing company for seven years or so. After that, I sold my shares out in my company and returned to school to get a degree so I could teach and painted every day, and have ever since.”

Gutierrez is represented by Arveda Gallery in La Jolla, where his next show, “Painting Prayers,” will open on Saturday, January, 25.


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