| | artrujillo@hotmail.com artrujillo02@msn.com  Alejandro Trujillo by Lorena Duarte The ArTrujillo Studio Gallery was located at 301 East Lake Street, lower level, in the International Bazaar - a building renovated from its former status as a "sauna" (whorehouse), and now hosting dozens of small businesses with primarily Mexican proprietors.
Outside facing 3rd Avenue, the International Bazaar building features a large well-lit painting of an outdoor market blending cultures from around the world, filled with people whose faces you may well recognize as neighbors. This delightful mural is the work of Alejandro Trujillo - the driving force behind ArTrujillo. I Ask Alejandro about the Studio Gallery, and you will be impressed not only with the man's words but also his passion. "3 months ago, this space was a dark, smelly cellar filled with junk. A group of us, all artists, wanted to create a place open to everyone willing to work. Everyone here has earned their place, by helping with whatever needed to be done - cleaning, painting, installing lights, and most of all by making art!"
And art is all around - on every wall, strung between beams, in progress on tables and easels. You can see paintings in an amazing variety of styles: from Pollock like action-paintings to somber isolated human figures to miniature folk-art scenes painted on leaves and bricks. There are shovels decorated as personal homage to one artist's family, and spiritual abstractions painted on canvas torn from the tents of a Saudi prison camp.
There are swirling biocellular inventions with intense detail, and rich floral images built up with bright strokes of thick impasto paint. The incredible variety and energy of work shows the creative enthusiasm of the ArTrujillo group.
The primary artists involved are from widely diverse origins. Trujillo is from Mexico, as is Flaviano Cortés and Juan Zaragoza. Jimmy Longoria is a Texan Chicano. Haider Al Amery is from Iraq. Leila Habashi is from Iran. James Grafsgaard is the sole Minnesota native.
The ArTrujillo artists cooperate across barriers of language and culture. But the artists also make cooperative paintings. In a number of works, you may see how 2 or 3 artists lent their hand to create an image. And for the grand opening, a 6-foot by 8-foot canvas was painted by the group in a spontaneous orgy of color and collage to represent the work of everyone involved.
Of course, this is a Gallery as well as a working studio. Customers find a wide range of affordable art, including fine oil and acrylic paintings ranging from $150 to several thousand dollars; small prints, drawings and miniatures for under $100, or cards for under $10.
At 3rd and Lake, ArTrujillo Studio Gallery is at the epicenter of south Minneapolis. It fills a unique niche among the many small shops and businesses along this stretch of Lake Street. And like the diversity of these storefronts, the Gallery represents the increasingly global nature of the city. But these artists are also demonstrating how to claim power as creative individuals by creating a communal space for art.
The ArTrujillo Studio Gallery aims to be an exciting new cultural force in Minnesota, and a vital part of the revitalization of Lake Street and the surrounding community.
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