![\"Firebreather](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/FireBreather_Combo-FINAL_16Bit_choice_Apr10-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMexico has fascinated Dallas-based photographer Laura Wilson for four decades. In Roaming Mexico: Laura Wilson, now on view at Meadows Museum, SMU through Jan. 11, the photographer reveals the nuances of the United States\u2019 southern neighbor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe contrast and the energy you get from the contrast of Mexico is a wonderful thing,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n
The exhibition features nearly 90 images created from about 40 years of Wilson\u2019s travels to Mexico. Most of them have never been published before, and some of the photographs were taken specifically for this exhibition.<\/p>\n
Complementing Roaming Mexico: Laura Wilson is Manuel \u00c1lvarez Bravo: Visions of Mexico, an exhibition of works by one of the most influential photographers in Latin America. Featuring more than 30 silver gelatin prints taken in Mexico from the 1920s to the 1980s, the exhibition draws from the collections of the Meadows Museum, the Dallas Museum of Art and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.<\/p>\n
Highlighting festivals, religious processions, everyday moments, and traditional farms, Roaming Mexico is Wilson\u2019s deeply personal perspective of Mexico, delving into the contradictions and unique vibrancy of Mexico.<\/p>\n
That energy is visible in a photograph depicting a street scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love street life,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cYou can get breakfast \u2013 breakfast tacos \u2013 you can be on horseback heading into a major city in Mexico, or you can be trucking chickens along or taking a bus car. This is all the life of the street.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\u00a9 Laura Wilson.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\u00a9 Laura Wilson.<\/p>\n
Laura Wilson, Diptych: Fire Breathers, Uruapan, Michoac\u00e1n, and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas (D\u00edptico: tragafuegos, Uruapan, Michoac\u00e1n y Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas), 2005\/1985. Archival pigment print. \u00a9 Laura Wilson.<\/p>\n
One of the first photographs of Mexico Wilson created was of a fire-breather who suddenly appeared as she and a friend sat in a stopped car shortly after crossing the border.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had never seen anything like this before. It was a stunning picture to me, and I thought, “Mexico is it. I\u2019ve got to go back,\u2019\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n
Twenty years later, Wilson saw another fire-breather and created a diptych of the images. She adjusted the color in one photograph and added color in to a black and white photograph to create the dramatic scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, Mexico is color and such wonderful color,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"Roaming](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2509100_RoamingMexico_Laura-Wilson_004.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tMeadows Museum, SMU<\/p>\n
\t\t\tMeadows Museum, SMU<\/p>\n
Laura Wilson documented the harsh realities of Mexico, including migrant camps and the nation’s poorest citizens.<\/p>\n
Wilson does not shy away from the harsh realities of Mexico. She documented the construction of a thirty-foot-high barrier across sections of the border and photographed law enforcement officers and migrant camps. She also created photographs of Mexico\u2019s poorest citizens, capturing their resilience and determination. In one photo, a young girl poses protectively in front of her father and sister.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t tell this little girl how to look at the camera, but the strength at which she is facing the camera and also keeping me at a distance. She\u2019s no nonsense,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n
The exhibition also features portraits of important cultural figures, such as writers Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez and Carlos Fuentes and architects Ricardo Legorreta and Alberto Kalach.\u00a0 Wilson photographed\u00a0Mexican folk art collectors Jaime Ristra and Patricia Ortiz Monasterio at home among their impressive collection.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey know every single piece,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"Roaming](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2509100_RoamingMexico_Laura-Wilson_011.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tMeadows Museum, SMU<\/p>\n
\t\t\tMeadows Museum, SMU<\/p>\n
Wilson captures not just the art collectors but their growing collection as well.<\/p>\n
Wilson photographed artisan and agricultural workers, many of them at work. One man she met at a market in Mexico City eagerly grinned from the camera. She explained she did not want him to smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cA smile is often a mask,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cYou often see more of what a person is when a person quiets himself or herself and you can see something in the face.\u201d<\/p>\n
Twenty years later, she ran into that same man, and he remembered her, striking a more serious pose. In her travels, she has never found language to be a barrier. She engages with all of her subjects and everyone, from dignitaries to tortilla makers, know they are being photographed. Always focused, Wilson is never light-hearted about her work. Her subjects respond to her artistic earnestness.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you approach someone with respect and seriousness, they get that this isn\u2019t just a snapshot. This is something more,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n
A gallery features a series of photographs too at an oxen parade. Over five nights, more than 100 decorated oxen carts paraded through Juchit\u00e1n, Oaxaca.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"Roaming](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Parade11-12-35OldWoman_V4_16BitNB_Apr10-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\u00a9 Laura Wilson<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\u00a9 Laura Wilson<\/p>\n
Laura Wilson, Parade of Oxen, Grandmother with Granddaughter, La Feria de las Velas, Juchit\u00e1n, Oaxaca (Desfile de bueyes, abuela consu nieta, La Feria de las Velas, Juchit\u00e1n, Oaxaca), 2011. Archival pigment print. \u00a9 Laura Wilson.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a major parade. I\u2019ve never seen a better parade,\u2019 Wilson said.<\/p>\n
Wilson adjusts the color and sandwiches two images together, creating her personal memory of her experience of the parade. The images reflect the Mexico Wilson knows, loves and wants to share.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of them are not real. They\u2019re more my memory and my feelings about the day and the situation I saw,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n