SAN ANTONIO, TX.- Ruiz-Healy Art is presenting Mel Casas: Iconic Reality, a special exhibition honoring the works of the late Mel Casas. The exhibition opened on Wednesday, October 18, 2017. A catalogue is available including an essay by the respected Chicano Art scholar and Associate Professor and Chair of Chicana/o Studies at the University of California at Davis, Carlos Francisco Jackson.

Mel Casas (b. 1929- d. 2014) was an artist of national and international renown. He was also an educator and cofounder of the San Antonio Artist Collective Con Safo—considered by many to be one of the most significant Chicano Art groups of the 60s and 70s. In regards to the future of Chicano art, Casas is quoted for the landmark exhibition, Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation (CARA), that his wishes were to make "Chicano art relevant to everyone.” Casas constructed a diagram outlining his vision to balance the "national art criteria" with Chicano Art and Regional Art in attempts to make Chicano art more accessible and "relevant to EVERYONE: AN ICONIC REALITY"

Ruiz-Healy Art's Mel Casas: Iconic Reality, features a body of work, not shown together previously. Selected Humanscapes have been juxtaposed with his more painterly applications (the artist later used a brushless application, where he poured paint directly on the canvas), mixing intimate and smaller works that really demonstrate the artist's fixation on beauty and sensuality, with his grander-scaled political paintings, providing a well-rounded view of the artists oeuvre under one roof. In the words of Carlos Francisco Jackson, "Ruiz-Healy Art’s exhibition of Mel Casa’s work provides a window into his broad and impactful practice of challenging borders that create metaphorical, physical, and ideological divergences."

Casas was born and raised in El Paso. He received his his BA from Texas Western College (now the University of Texas at El Paso) in 1956 and his MFA from the University of the Americas in Mexico City 1958. In 1975 he was selected to participate in prestigious American Art survey, the Whitney Biennial. And he is found in respected collections such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.. Casas was featured in pivotal exhibitions and publications on Chicano Art including: Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation (An interpretive exhibition of the Chicano Art Movement, 1965-1985), The Latin American Spirit: Art and Artists in the United States, 1920-1970, Hispanic Art in the United States: Thirty Contemporary Painters and Sculptors, Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art: Artists, Works, Culture, and Education (Volume 1), Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge, and Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art.