Vigil, Frederico
Artist Frederico Vigil, a native of Santa Fe, is devoted to reviving buon fresco, an art form that reached its zenith in 16th century Italy. But it is appropriate that New Mexico is a focus of fresco’s revival since long before the 16th century, Meso-American pyramids and Anasazi kivas were painted with a fresco technique much like that used today by Vigil. His materials, pure natural pigments, sands, lime and colored soils come from the earth of New Mexico and bear a natural relationship to that other “earth art” of the Southwest, adobe walls.
While Vigil’s favorite canvas is a blank wall—in a dimly-lit chapel, in the halls of a college or university, on the outside of any building—he has also created frescos on portable panels to be installed in private residences. As he walks through his native town, Frederico Vigil’s constant preoccupation is his search for a wall . . . an expanse of any size that seems to beg to be turned into a permanent work of art.