*Opening reception will be from 5-7pm
Rastros en el Tiempo
Rastros en el Tiempo
organized by Jonathan Sánchez Noa
Public Opening: June 24th, 5pm-7pm
Exhibition Dates: June 24th - August 3rd, 2022
Gallery Hours: 7 days a week, 10am-5pm
Jonathan Sanchez Noa, Daniella Portillo, and Sabrina Mendoza Malavé, a group of three artists based in New York City, present the exhibition Rastros en el Tiempo, which interprets how each of the artists trace their experiences as individuals rooted in a shared language with varying cultural heritages and national backgrounds from Cuba, El Salvador, and Venezuela. They depict landmarks, memories, and symbolism etched in their upbringings. Each of them share conceptual interests in relation to histories of liberation and colonization.
Rastros en el Tiempo (Traces in Time) is a group exhibition which speaks to the historic symbolism of the diaspora of Latinx individuals. The group presents work that pushes the boundaries of its media to analyze exchanges in their various cultures; the land, community, and architecture find themselves intertwined in the collection of works.
The purpose of the exhibition is to present the viewer with a layered understanding of what it means to find solidarity in memory and to convey messages about the experience of emigrating from ones homelands during tumultuous times: watching the political unrest and societal changes from afar, in places layered with history and materials that make it difficult to preserve the cultures they were raised within. Latin American people are a mixture of many cultures. They are mestizo; people who breathe resilience. During the span of this exhibition, the group will expand the scope of interpretation of the Latinx community that The Clemente Center embodies and represents.
In Nuestra América by Cuban poet José Martí, the impact of European settlement and colonialism on Latin America is brought to light. He addressed his own people, especially Cuban intellectuals living in exile, to create a Pan-Latin American identity. Throughout the past two centuries the countries of origin for this group have gone through turmoil and challenges. This essay has had a significant impact on the artists, as they have seen the wealth and prosperity of western countries who continue to profit on Latin American land, people, and resources. The group has developed work to help illustrate their lived experiences to bridge the visible inequities in their own communities as they aim to directly respond to challenging situations.
Sanchez Noa reconstructs visualities of transition and displacement – how materials and politicized landscapes change our perception within time and space through the use of Cuban tobacco and paper fibers. These materials become his entry-point to produce a discursive condition materially, theoretically, and formally. Through papermaking techniques, tobacco stain patterns are imprinted directly into raw pulp slabs. This process is informed by his interest in Afro-Cuban spirituality, religion, and folkloric tales, which have evolved through the use of acana, jaguey, rompezaragüey, habano (tobacco) - powerful ingredients used by Taínos, Cimarrones, and Congo people for hundreds of years. Sanchez Noa’s drawings speak to the erasure of creolized devotional practices to decenter, resist, and challenge colonial conditions of systemic binds.
Portillo romanticizes polarized landscapes built through layers of paint that deteriorate the surface, creating vibrant yet deep images that echo memories of living in El Salvador. Through the Romantic era of the 19th Century, the vastness of the uncharted tropics was celebrated by artists such as Edwin Church and Thomas Cole, who affiliated religion, science, and spirituality with the panoramic scenes of the New World. Iberian colonies’ terrains were once brought to fruition in paintings which displayed their spiritual purity and barbarity to the Eurocentric imaginations. Around the same time, artists like Jose Maria Velasco and Rafael Troya painted their homelands as a source of national pride, stripping away the foreign and exotic elements of those scenes brought from European perspectives. By weaving together echoes of Velasco and Troya through the landscapes of El Salvador, Portillo uses elements of light, memory, and deterioration to bring out these scenes.
Mendoza represents the perseverance of Venezuelan citizens through dire circumstances in the country. Through the Social Realism era of the 1930s, members of the movement created figurative and realistic images of the "masses", a term that encompassed the working class, labor unionists, and the politically disenfranchised to expose class inequality. Mendoza’s work is highly influenced by the Social Realists' commitment to commemorate the masses. Her sculptures are inspired by the small artisanal houses that are sold as souvenirs in Venezuela and other Latin American countries, which tend to be collected and used as decoration in homes. In contrast to these, her works are based on existing infrastructures in different barrios and often reference historical events in the country. Mendoza’s work features written messages taken from various political campaign slogans, news stories, and protest signs. These texts are painted onto the art pieces to represent the public opinion of Venezuelans, so as to spark discussions over public life in the country.