Karla Solano is a member of a new generation of Costa Rican artists who have challenged a relatively conservative art scene in their own country, while coming of age with the arrival of digital media.
   Virginia Pérez, Director of TEOR/éTica gallery (a not-for-profit gallery in the center of San José known for it’s innovative programming) describes Solano’s work: “The territory in Karla Solano's work is the human body, particularly her own. For a long period she used x-rays as a means of metaphorically analyzing the image of her self.” For the past decade the artist continually produces innovative and provocative works based on images of her own body.
   Solano has exhibited large scale public works at the biennales in Sao Paulo, Havana and Shanghai, in which she wraps a building or a room with images of her own body. On a smaller scale, Karla Solano produces a series of photographs ingeniously combined with painting on canvas. “Beso”, featured above, is a seductive and playful image of her lips in the form of a kiss. The scale of the lips and the textures of the image, as well as the canvas, invite viewers to explore the abstracted shapes and contours. The tension between the media, the gestures and the colors create compositions that are challenging as well as beautiful.
   In another group as part of her latest body of work, Solano explores photography in three dimensional formats. “Wraps”, what she calls the sculptural pieces, confront the viewer like an alien being. However, the familiarity of the skin tones and textures, with glimpses of gestural hands and her curly red hair suggest a kinship and warmth that ultimately invites the viewer to relate on a more familiar level.
Monte Azul is proud the show this artist’s truly innovative works at our sites in Costa Rica and New York. For further information, click here.

Twenty artists from Costa Rica, including Monte Azul’s Alvaro Gomez, Sebastian Mello, Ileana Moya and Jose Pablo Solis are invited to paint au pleine aire. Proceeds from the painting sales will go for the reconstruction of elementary schools destroyed or damaged by the December 2008 earthquake.

   At Café Blue our aim is to provide and serve wholesome ingredients, using the freshest seasonal organic products, grown locally and on our property in simple and elegant dishes.
   Guests dining at Café Blue may be surprised to know that their elegant and contemporary dishes were not prepared or designed by professionally trained chefs from abroad. In fact, 100% of our staff is from the immediate area. We hire only local talent because at Monte Azul, social responsibility weighs equally with our concerns for the environmental. We are fortunate to have with us young talented cooks, Allan Hernández and Tony Múñoz heading our kitchen.
   These young men have tremendous responsibilities: not only do they have the task of producing the best possible dishes based on local products, but they also head the organic vegetable farm on site. Menus are planned with what is fresh and available from our own garden, picked only at the peak of perfection. What is not used in the kitchen is often bartered for other products from the area, or goes back to the community in the form of gifts to our neighbors.
   As part of career enhancement opportunities for our staff, Café Blue invites Chefs from Costa Rica and abroad as Guest Chefs in order to introduce our staff to the latest innovations in contemporary cuisine. The two talents will combine their skills to present new and exciting dishes to our guests. ¡Buen provecho!

   Álvaro Gómez, painter, printmaker and Director of Monte Azul Press, has been known throughout his career for innovations on familiar themes. Most recently the artist has developed a technique to reinterpret his own paintings on canvas onto glass.
   The artist’s interest in light as demonstrated by his use of very liquid paints, iridescence and metallic colors, led him naturally to explore glass. A painter at heart, Gómez sought to capture light in the glass and use to his artistic advantage. His success is evident in the product: cool blues and greens filter light and sparkle, intermingled are iridescent shades of natural tones, catching the light and ever changing with the viewer’s position. Each moment is like a new vision of the rainforest and translated into abstracted, carefully controlled drips and splatters of paint. During the day, light reflects off the surface of the glass and the effect is like the surface of a river or ocean. In the evening, the transformation is stunning as light passes through the glass and reveals an entirely new set of intricacies not seen in daylight. Gómez comments that his use of light-reflective paints and translucent materials create work that not only suggests the atmosphere found in Costa Rica, but also must be experienced in person.
   Alvaro Gómez’s paintings on glass also serve an architectural purpose and can be seen at Café Blue, at Monte Azul. For additional information please contact us at: New York 646 478 7038, Costa Rica +506 2742 5222, or info@monteazulcr.com.

   Monte Azul strives to promote local products and fortunately, we are located in an area with bountiful and varied options. One of the most treasured are the Swiss style cheeses, homemade less than a mile from Monte Azul, and produced in the rural tradition of the Swiss Alps.
   Katia and Wilberth, born and raised here in the Chirripó Valley, learned the technique from a Swiss cheese maker who later invited the couple to Switzerland where they trained in traditional cheese making methods with farmers in the Alps. The couple has brought to “The Switzerland of Central America”, as Costa Rica is known in the region, delicious and unique versions of those cheeses. In Switzerland the cheese had no name, so to keep the tradition, Katia and Wilbur insist on leaving their savory cheeses nameless.
   The family farm produces milk from organically raised dairy cows. Wilbur is in charge of producing the milk for the cheese, while Katia is in charge of the cheese production. Young or aged, the cheese will delight the strictest fromageophile. Paired with a local desert liquor, we serve a desert entrée featuring these cheeses that may tempt you to skip the rest of dinner.
   Guests at Monte Azul are privileged to participate in the cheese making process as one of the workshops we offer in collaboration with the family. In fact, it has been one of our guests’ favorites by far!