COLLECTIVE
MEMORIES/
PERSONAL CARTOGRAPHIES:
PRINTS BY DIOGENES BALLESTER,
JUAN SANCHEZ, AND JULIO VALDEZ
Co-Sponsored by the Black & Hispanic Studies Department
February 6 to March 4, 2004
The work of artists Diogenes Ballester, Juan
Sanchez and Julio Valdez, each a
product of New York City’s Caribbean diaspora, explores
issues of identity and memory associated with personal journeys
and transplanted cultures. Drawing on a lively printmaking
tradition that flourishes in Puerto Rico, these artists expand
and embellish the printmakers’ art, creating layered,
textured images that draw on island symbols, folkloric motifs,
and Christian iconography. Within this heady mix, they incorporate
fragments of discordant urban images to produce a new and
vibrant vocabulary spanning their individual and collective
experiences.
Collective Memories/Personal Cartographies: Prints
by Diogenes Ballester, Juan Sanchez, and Julio Valdez
will be at the Mishkin Gallery
from Friday, February 6 through Thursday, March 4, 2004. Opening
Reception Thursday, February 5, 6 to 8 pm.
Julio Valdez, who was born in the Dominican Republic, explicitly
aligns himself with his island home, often depicting the shape
of a body or a head superimposed on a map of the Dominican
Republic. The crying baby of The Grey Echo IV, 2003
rests on a splattered outline of the island, suggesting both
trauma and new beginnings. In Valdez’s paintings the
primordial island is further evoked through its birds and
lizards, the indigenous flora and fauna, while a recurrent
motif of thorns suggests both religious sacrifice and the
pain of slavery.
Diogenes Ballester’s works here include Fertility
Series, an installation of small, unprinted wood blocks
laid out in the shape of a cross. Bypassing the printing process,
Ballester colors these wood surfaces with charcoal and wax.
The artist’s recent work also includes inkjet prints
of Paris, where he lived and worked for a time before returning
to his studio in Spanish Harlem.
Juan Sanchez, honors his dual Puerto Rican/American identity
by naming his works: “Ricanstructions.” Large
and luscious, Sanchez’ prints pay homage to Puerto Rico’s
past as well as the artist’s present life in New York
City (he teaches at Hunter College) through the use of upside
down images of palm trees, family photographs, feathers, and
paint. In Victoria de Samatracia, Sanchez takes a
classical Greek theme and reworks it with a Caribbean flair
and sensibility. Sanchez frequently splices documentary images
with spiral patterns and other Taino symbols that convey a
sense of historical continuity.
The work of all three artists has been widely exhibited in
the United States, in Central and South America, as well as
in Italy, France and Bulgaria and the Netherlands. All three
are exponents of art that bridges “high art” and
folkloric traditions with ease and grace.
The Mishkin Gallery is located at Baruch College, 135 E. 22nd
Street, New York City. Gallery hours are Monday – Friday,
Noon to 5 pm; Thursday, Noon to 7 pm.
All shows are free and open to the public.
Zane Berzins
News Manager
