Música NYC 2019, 12 x 18 inches, Woodcut print with Chine Collé
May your 2023 be an awesomely happy, healthy, and rewarding year! 2022 was an incredibly wonderful year for my artistic trajectory. I greatly appreciate the support I received from my friends, family, collectors, and curators as I exhibited my art in multiple venues. The year was filled with significant activities and accomplishments.
The Gold Wing Art Gallery hosted my solo exhibition titled Joyfully Present In Our Dual Cultures/ Disfrutando En Nuestras Dos Culturas. The show was curated by Regina Gradess and includes mobiles, prints, paintings, and accompanying full-color catalog. The exhibit celebrates the shared identity of New York City and its Dominican communities. Two poems of the Dominican poet Elddry Castillo are featured in the exhibition and reflect its celebratory feeling.
PYE 2019, 8 x 8 x 10 inches, Linoleum printed sculpture
Riverfront Art Gallery selected several printed sculptures for the exhibition The In-Between Spaces, curated by Haifa Bint-Kadi. This exhibition presents artwork that is non-traditional or that uses revolutionary techniques, innovative forms of art that resist traditional categories or techniques.
Love Is All 2022, dimensions varies, Acrylic on paper & board
Local Project exhibit - For The Public – mobile
“Love Is All” is a colorful mobile that was shown at Local Project in Queens, New York, part of the AnkhLave Garden Project Fellowship. The mobile features several butterfly-winged figures floating around a large flower with a yellow heart suspended from its center. Love Is All expresses the universal gravitational pull of love.
Corazon Puro 2022, 72’ x 54” x 6”, Mixed media installation
“Corazon Puro,” a mixed media installation in the exhibition Memento Mori at Riverfront Art Gallery, responds to life and death as we faced the COVID-19 pandemic. The idea of the curator, Haifa Bint-Kadi, was to explore the ways of thinking and being in the world, to adopt new ways of living. Awareness of death, in all its forms, can be an opportunity to adapt, to appreciate, to honor and value the lives we are currently living. This awareness can be a door, a light shining upon more healthy ways of being present in the world. Death reminds us that each moment of life is sacred.
El Reggaeton Del Bachatero, 2010, 11”x15”, Etching and aquatint with chine collé
“El Reggaeton Del Bachatero” was selected for All My Ancestors: The Spiritual in Afro-Latinx Art, Brandywine Workshop & Archives, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by the art historian Tatiana Reinoza. Catalog coming in 2023.
This print was also displayed at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas in the ¡Printing the Revolution! exhibition. The Smithsonian American Art Museum first displayed this exhibition, organized by E. Carmen Ramos, acting chief curator and curator of Latinx art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, with Claudia E. Zapata, curatorial assistant for Latinx art. This print is part of Manifestaciones, the first portfolio by the printmaking collective Dominican York Proyecto Grafica (DYPG), of which I am a founding member. This amazing exhibition is accompanied by a brilliant catalog of images with essays by art historians E. Carmen Ramos, Terezita Romo, Tatiana Reinoza, and Claudia E. Zapata.
Indio, 1992, 14”x11”, Sugar-lift and dry-point print
Ruiz-Healy Art showed “Indio” at the McNay Print fair, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas. I created this print in homage to el indio, Quisqueya’s natives, who were encountered by Columbus over 500 years ago.
Carlos Cooks Buy Black, 2022, screen print
The exhibition Carlos Cooks: The Activist and His Teachings, at Alianza Dominicana Art Gallery, New York, was curated by Ofelia Rodriguez, who selected the print “Carlos Cooks: Buy Black” to be part of the show.
The inspiration for the print “Carlos Cooks: Buy Black” is the commitment of the African American activist Carlos Cooks to Black economic advancement. Carlos Cooks created the phrase “Buy Black” as an empowering message to African American communities in the United States.
This artwork is based on the U.S. dollar. It shows a billion-dollar bill anchored by the image of Carlos Cooks and the statement “Buy Black”, rendered in the Old School graffiti style. The edges are adorned with African cowrie shells.
Angel 1 template, 2019, 30”x40”, Silk screen print
“Angel 1 template,” part of the Deconstructed Anatomies exhibition at the Riverfront Art Gallery curated by Haifa Bint-Kadi, is a printed sculpture. This show dissects the processes and anatomies, “the insides,” of objects. “Angel 1 template” depicts the in-between state after the print and before the sculpture during the creation of a “printed sculpture.” It shows how the voids left in the template become art.
Black Power Fist for Carlos Cooks, 2013, 13”x9”, Silk screen print on wood
¡Presente! A Latino History of the United States is the first exhibition for the American Latino Museum. It is presented at the National Museum of American History, in Washington, D.C. Included in this groundbreaking exhibition is the artwork “Black Power Fist for Carlos Cooks,” a homage to the black activist of Dominican descent.
Viajeros X2, 2018, 16” x 20” Woodcut print
Colectivo Grabado Dominicano presented the exhibition El Ojo Del Grabado at the Casa de Cultura, Puerto Plata, in the Dominican Republic, curated by the artist Humberto Grullon. The print selected was “Viajeros X2,” a woodcut of bananas and wings that references the migrants’ journey.
Sancochitó Sabrosón, 2012, 9”x9”, Etching and aquatint print
Ruiz-Healy Art in New York City presented Contemporary Latinx Printmakers, curated by Patricia Ruiz-Healy, who included “Sancochitó Sabrosón,” “Indio,” and “El Reggaeton Del Bachatero” among this select group.
Cembros 5 – Rey de La Esperanza, 2022, 7.5”x5.5”, Linoleum print
Consejo Grafico National, by way of artist Sandra Fernandez, invited me to participate in its group portfolio Bestiary. The portfolio is a compilation of figures that combine animal and human characteristics and that address aesthetic, moral, social, or/and ecological issues. “Cembros 5 – Rey de La Esperanza” is a linoleum print, an imaginal template for a printed sculpture of a mystical creature that sows hope for the future as we face challenging times across the globe.
Cembros 5 – Rey de La Esperanza,2022, 7.5”x5.5” each, template & painting
Winter Calling at the Riverfront Art Gallery in Yonkers, New York, curated by Haifa Bint-Kadi, included a trifecta of the print, the template, and a painting of “Cembros 5 – Rey de La Esperanza.” This art is an exploration of three different mediums.
Rebirth of Our Nation, 2021, 30” x 22” inches, Silk screen print
Ideas/Variations, curated by Pepe Coronado at the Coronado Print Room in Austin, Texas, displayed “Rebirth of Our Nation 2,” a new print based on the black-and-white print and color painting of the same name. It is an edition of 26, available to the public. It was published by Coronado Studios of Austin, Texas.
Unchain 1, 2022, 11”x11”, Silk screen print
“Unchain 1,” which was exhibited at the Manhattan Graphics Center, highlights the multiple paths taken by migrants on their challenging journeys. This print will be part of the Migrants: Faces and Paths traveling exhibition organized by Rene Arceo.
Sea Flees detail Woodcut printed sculpture 24 x 36 x36 inches
Latinx Art Fair at the SMV Gallery curated by Jose Vidal brought together major Latinx artists in New York City. I participated with three prints. The “Sea Flees” template was one of them. Here is the printed sculpture.
Articles
Manhattan Times News, August 6, 2022. “On Wings and of Will – Artist explores freedom and industry,” https://www.manhattantimesnews.com/on-wings-and-of-will-sobre-alas-y-voluntad/
Presentations
“All My Ancestors: The Spiritual in Afro-Latinx Art”, March 26th, 2022, Brandywine Workshop and Archives (BWA), in partnership with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), presented the free lecture by Tatiana Reinosa, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3S6vN7ZebI
Coming in 2023
¡Printing the Revolution! February 4 – June 11
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
(Touring from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.)
CaFA - Caribbean Fine Arts Fair Barbados – Printed sculpture
Skysoul – Sugar Hill Museum – mobiles installation
Shared Dialogue, Shared Space Project - Korea Art Forum – art workshops and public sculpture
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