A former 16th-century trade outpost some 285 miles northwest of Mexico City in Jalisco state, Guadalajara is one of Mexico’s most traditional cities, a place where leafy boulevards are patchworked with French Baroque colonial mansions. Until recently, the art in Guadalajara has tended toward the folkloric: The town is primarily known for earthen ceramics, as well as for mariachi bands (the genre originated in the region). ‘‘It used to be that creative people got out of here as soon as possible,’’ says the artist Eduardo Sarabia, who moved to Guadalajara from Los Angeles and co-founded an art ‘‘laboratory’’ called PAOS that hosts residencies and exhibits in the stark studio that once belonged to the great Modernist muralist José Clemente Orozco. ‘‘But that’s changed.’’ Sarabia is part of a wave of young artists and gallerists who’re remaking the town into a sort of mellow, sunny-skies utopia. He’s joined by the young Spaniards Silvia Ortiz and Inés López-Quesada, who opened a branch of their Madrid gallery, Travesía Cuatro, in the upscale Colonia Lafayette neighborhood a few years ago in order to be closer to some of their key artists — local talent who have seen their stars rise on the contemporary scene, including Jose Dávila, Gonzalo Lebrija and Jorge Méndez Blake.