The exhibition is a collection of fragments of stories from the southeast of Mexico

Two paintings of large proportions welcome visitors to the gallery of the “Peón Contreras” Theater in Mérida, Yucatán. The paintings, in a vertical format, pose as a diptych with 2 different but closely linked images: one is a long soda bottle with a blurred logo that says “Pino” and the other is an incomplete illustration of a caricatured soldier with his hand on the forehead in greeting. For any Yucatecan over 30 years old, the sight of these images fills them with nostalgia: it is an old ad for the now defunct brand of Sidra Pino soft drinks, a beloved Yucatecan company that closed in 2011 and was known for its 2 best-selling drinks: Pino Negra Cider and Chocolate Soldier.

These works are the first of a collection of 15 pieces that the artist Alfredo Romero, of Spanish origin, exhibits in his most recent exhibition “Retracing time”. The creation of these works consisted of the artist going through the popular neighborhoods of some cities in the southeast of the country in search of old advertisements, signs and messages written on the walls and facades of businesses, homes and others. Once selected, Romero removed these advertisements through an archeology technique called strappo, to later transfer them to a canvas support and intervene on them.

But the selection of these ads or images was not entirely random. Behind each of its pieces, there is an intimate and real story about the people who decided to paint it, the product that is promoted or the business on which it was painted. These stories are told, not only through the works, but also in a book of the same title that accompanies the exhibition and a 50-minute documentary that shows Romero's artistic process and the hidden stories of each work.

With this exhibition, Alfredo Romero turns into art the signs and advertisements that have been testimony to popular and personal stories of daily life in Mexico, while creating an archive of memory and heritage of the cities he visited.

The exhibition is open to the public at the Peón Contreras gallery in the city of Mérida from Tuesday to Friday, between 9:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., or Saturdays and Sundays, from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. until March 20. Later, the exhibition will tour the cities of Cuernavaca, Puebla, Veracruz, Monterrey and Mexico City on dates to be confirmed.