Galerie Pepe is pleased to present ‘Paisaje’, an exhibition curated by Dexter Dalwood

Alfred Briquet, Mitzi Falcón, Pedro Figari, Gabriel Figueroa, Juan de Mata Pacheco, Nicolás Moreno, Fernando Nureña, SEFT-1 (Iván Puig & Andrés Padilla Domene), Melanie Smith, Francisco Toledo, José María Velasco

February 3rd - March 28th, 2026

In the mid-19th century, Latin American landscape painting underwent a profound transformation. Moving away from the European Romantic tradition—characterised by its dramatic, idealised, and often non-specific depictions of nature—artists across the region began embracing a more documentary and observational approach. This shift marked a growing interest in scientific accuracy and the specificities of place, rather than abstract notions of the sublime or purely aesthetic topography.

In Mexico, José María Velasco emerged as a central figure in this transition. His work is notable not only for its technical sophistication but for its capacity to bridge the historical with the contemporary. Velasco portrayed the landscape as both a subject of natural beauty and a site of political and cultural significance, capturing the dual forces of disappearance and renewal that shape both nature and nationhood. His legacy laid important groundwork for successive generations of artists to view the landscape not as a backdrop, but as an active and contested space.

Paisaje takes inspiration from this historical pivot to explore how artists, photographers, and filmmakers across Latin America continue to engage with the landscape as a vital and politically charged genre. Far from being a neutral or passive setting, land becomes a conceptual arena, a space through which to examine themes of memory, displacement, belonging and environmental change.