HOUSTON, TX (November 2^nd, 2021) – Art of the World Gallery is delighted to announce its fall season exhibition, Icons from the Museums, featuring the contemporary realism painter Carlos Vega Faúndez and his @Museums Series. The striking solo-show unveiled on Wednesday, October 28^th, 2021, and will be on view until January 8^th, 2022, at 2201 Westheimer Rd. Houston, 77098.

Carlos Vega presents Icons from the Museums to the United States audience for the first time, selecting Houston and Art of the World Gallery as his debut. The exhibition focuses on his exploration of Pop Art, Photorealism, and his take on the still life. The gallery’s first floor displays a vast selection of over 30 brand new paintings, which come exclusively from the celebrated @Museum Series by the Chilean, Spanish-based artist. Art Historian and Executive Editor of Paper City Magazine, Catherine D. Anspon, has studied the artist’s work, remarking, “While visually engaging, the works are also conceptually rigorous in their underlying abstraction and engagement with the grand talents of art history and the museums that are the repositories of those creators.”

The individual exhibit serves as a pivotal point in the artist’s career, a move in which Art of the World Gallery is taking account of, introducing him to many Houston-based art collectors. With his artworks in major collections across the world including, South Korea, Spain, Texas, Mexico, his natal Chile, and more, Vega’s art practice has traversed continents and encompassed venues from art fairs to gallery exhibitions and shows in embassies, cultural centers, universities, museums, and foundations. The artist’s contemporary philosophy of art-appreciation arouses the desire and interest in art collecting.

Carlos Vega F. bridges two movements of modern art – Pop and Photorealism, taking viewers through a historical art journey. The art touching down at some of the world’s most important museums, inspired by artists from the Renaissance through the late Modern era. In the @Museum Series, Vega’s depictions are impressive recreations from iconic masters and their most representative pieces on the covers of museum exhibition collectable catalogues. Moreover, the series also touches on some of the most famous comics of the 20^th century, like Belgian Tintin by Hergé.

A creator of clever canvases, Vega’s inanimate compositions are ingeniously presented, not only paying homage to artists and museums, but also questioning museum’s role in consumerism. In the tradition of Pop Art, Vega considers the familiar concept of the souvenir, highlighting exhibition books, posters, and other collectable objects from museum shops. For the last hundred years, all these objects have been accessible to art lovers and memorialize consumers’ museum experience.

Houston’s art scene has grown tremendously in the past year with the MFAH’s Nancy and Richard Kinder Building approaching it’s one-year anniversary and the Rothko Chapel celebrating 50 years as a landmark for the city, Vega’s exhibition underlines the importance of these cultural institutions. Familiar artworks by Rothko, Fontana, and Miró are included in his homages. In addition to recalling other old masters and pioneers such as Botticelli, Vermeer, Gauguin, Monet, Manet, Mucha, Picasso, Mondrian, Lichtenstein, and Warhol, to name a few. With Houston asserting itself as a hub for Fine Art, Icons from the Museums by Carlos Vega F. is a must-see exhibition.