BECKLEY — On a recent stroll through his gallery on Neville Street, entrepreneur Jose Rizo had the demeanor of a big city museum docent.
He points to a pastel-rich print of the famous painting “Q Train” by artist Nigel Van Wieck and begins to explain how the piece changed the artist’s career.
“And this piece just really shot his career through the roof,” Rizo said.
Rizo points to the gallery wall at the paintings near the Van Wieck print and explains why the pieces are grouped together.
“So what I kind of want to do with this wall is just kind of show how people interact or don’t interact,” Rizo said. “Is this lady bored? Is she contemplating? Or she does she just need time alone?”
After a few minutes with Rizo it’s easy to understand his passion for art and art collecting and how he appreciates the value of self-expression. He also enjoys educating others about art and why art is important to have a presence in a city.
And now for the fourth time since December 2023, Rizo is opening up his gallery space to the public to showcase parts of a vast art collection. He said he wanted to create an atmosphere that would resemble an opening on four different nights.
“So what I wanted to do was just create four opening nights. So I have two weekends, and every night it’s like an opening night, so every night we’ll have 80 people, 70 people,” Rizo said.
The art exhibit will open Friday, July 18, and Saturday, July 19, from 6-8 p.m. each night. It will open again on Friday, July 25, from 6-8 p.m. However, on Saturday, July 26, the exhibit will open at 5 p.m. and run till 9 p.m. Each exhibit will feature food from his family restaurant El Mariachi and music performed by a saxophone-guitar duet. Admission is $15 each night except July 26, which will be $5. July 26 the exhibit will be rolled into the BEX Festival, which will feature four bands. On July 19 and 26, a new documentary Rizo produced about artist Billy Foster will be showing at The Raleigh Playhouse and Theatre.
The BEX Festival will also have 20 vendors spread along Neville Street, which will be shut down for the event.
“The last two Saturdays of the month, during my show, or before the show at five o’clock — so a lot of art stuff going on — you literally can come Saturday at five o’clock, see the documentary, walk right across the street and see my show.
“So, yeah, you walk around, listen to music, grab some food, and then go into a room and see somebody’s art, walk into another room and you’re completely surrounded by a total different artist, a total different way of expressing art,” Rizo said.
Beckley artist Robert Walker will have a number of paintings on display and for sale at Rizo’s show. During their 20-year relationship, Walker has framed hundreds of pieces of Rizo’s art collection while, at the same time, creating new works using mostly oils.
“Art breaks you out of the mundane, your perceived reality, you know,” Walker said. “And there’s a lot more to reality than when we box ourselves into thinking. And sometimes art will lift you up higher. Sometimes it’ll take you down into a dark space that you’re familiar with and we can identify with art.”
Walker said art has a way of stimulating the brain in ways other pursuits cannot.
Rizo said he is grateful for the sponsors who are helping make the exhibit possible and is excited about teaming up with the BEX Festival in the city again this year. He is also excited about the six artists who will be in the exhibit who have never been in an art show before.
“I have 20 local artists that will be here, six artists who have never shown in public before, which I love to do. I love to give people that are artists an opportunity to display their art and the sense of pride that they have,” Rizo said. “Whenever somebody walks into a room, it’s like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you painted this. This is great.’”
