THROUGH THE EYES OF AN ARTIST

Win Bruhl's Mexico can't be found in a travel brochure.

Rather it's found in the hard-scrabble life of the campesinos, Mexico's peasant farmers, and in political murals.

Bruhl's Mexico comes across in bits and pieces through the images he creates.

"Subjective References: Drawings, Prints and Paintings," a 19-piece collection of his artwork stemming from his travels in Mexico will be displayed in the Southeast Missouri State University Museum. The artwork will be on sale at prices ranging from $150 to $1,200.

The exhibit opens with a reception at 7 p.m. Monday in the museum gallery and will remain on display through Oct. 29. Museum hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Admission is free. Special tours and group appointments can be arranged by calling (314) 651-2260.

Bruhl, who grew up in Scott City, graduated from Southeast University. From 1970 to 1988, except for a few years of graduate work, Bruhl was a member of the art faculty at Southeast.

He is now in his sixth year as an art professor at Concordia College in St. Paul, Minn. For the first five years, he served as chairman of the art department.

This marks Bruhl's first show at the University Museum since he left Southeast.

Bruhl's return to Cape Girardeau is a homecoming of sorts. His parents, Gilbert and Virginia Bruhl, still live in the area on a farm north of Cape Girardeau.

Bruhl's artistic endeavors these days are firmly focused on Mexico. "In two years, I have been to Mexico four times."

He has taken students on several trips there and is planning another for February to study the art and archaeology of central Mexico.

"It's just an amazing culture in that the arts are so integrated in their life," said the 49-year-old artist. That contrasts sharply with the United States where "most things (artwork) are kept behind doors and you have to make special arrangements to go see it."

In Mexico, one is surrounded by art. "It is on the walls. You go to the market and you find kumquats, and right beside it you find arts and crafts," said Bruhl.

"It's a great place to take students and talk about art in public places and the function of art."

In addition to his 19-piece collection to be exhibited at the University Museum, Bruhl has a 20-photo exhibit called "Disparate Images," which is now touring on the West Coast.

"It was intended to represent the extreme contrasts that one finds in a developing nation like Mexico," he said.

Mexico City, with 23 million people, is the largest city in the world. "It grows at a population of about 2,000 a day," said Bruhl.

In the city, he said, "you find riches and poverty living side by side."

Bruhl views his current artwork has somewhat "journalistic" in nature.

"The pieces that I have in the (University Museum) show all deal with my interpretation of events, individuals and activities that have evolved out of my experience," said Bruhl.

Most of the pieces are monotype prints. "Monotype is basically an image that evolves using a print process," he explained.

One piece is a drawing of an archaeological site, another is a painting done in acrylic and mixed media of a topographical pattern, the colors blending together.

The piece is Bruhl's interpretation of the intense colors one finds in Mexico.

Another monotype print seeks to capture the brilliant light one finds in Mexico, what Bruhl calls "the strong influence of natural light" stemming from the country's proximity to the Equator.

"I react to the color; I react to the light," he observed.

Five of the pieces are a series of images based on a journal he kept of his travels in Mexico. Some of the journal entries are incorporated in the artwork.

"Excerpts From A Journal" deal with Bruhl's meeting with a campesino family he met in Chalcatzingo, a little village in southern Mexico.

"It's just a little dried up campesino town," said Bruhl. "I could look around and there was nothing but dust under foot. The buildings were just dried and crumbling."

Campesinos, he said, are "kind of economically suppressed people the people who are accustomed to and enjoy living off the land, but in a society the economy of which just does not allow them to survive."

Bruhl, who has been a working artist for 24 to 25 years, doesn't confine himself to a single artistic style.

That's even reflected in the University Museum exhibit. "I have a couple of pieces in the show that are very conventional, little landscape studies. Stylistically, they don't seem to relate so much," said Bruhl.

"That diversity has been a bother to me and at the same time kind of a delight," he observed. "I don't feel encumbered to always express myself in the same way."