Palm Beach Florida Weekly

ART OF THE DIASPORA

A SHOW AT THE CULTURAL COUNCIL FEATURES WORKS BY 24 LOCAL ARTISTS OF LATIN AMERICAN AND HISPANIC DESCENT.



With its focus of being for Palm Beach County, the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County is taking its mission literally, showcasing works of artists from all backgrounds and heritages.

During October, National Hispanic Heritage Month, the council brings its latest exhibit, “Contemporary Art of the Latin American Diaspora,” highlighting works from 24 of the county’s most talented artists of Latin American and Hispanic descent.

The exhibit, which continues through Jan. 14, features a variety of art, including printmaking and large-scale sculptures from artists Séfora Ambulódegui, Milena Arango, Juan Bernal, Gabino A. Castelán, Emilia Chang and Dana Donaty, among others.

“We want to give voice to and celebrate everybody in our community,” says Dave Lawrence, CEO of the Cultural Council. “Bringing in new and diverse artists is a way to highlight and introduce these artists to the broader community. “It’s a great way to expand our roster of exhibiting artists and we hope these artists will return to other exhibits during the year.”

Guest Curator Juliana Forero COURTESY PHOTOS

Guest Curator Juliana Forero COURTESY PHOTOS

Mr. Lawrence gives credit to the exhibit’s curator, Juliana Forero, founder and art director of South Florida arts organization Nomad Art Projects, for her approach to choosing the number and variety of pieces for the show. “It’s phenomenal,” he says.

For Ms. Forero, who is of Colombian descent and came to the U.S. in 2002, her focus is to highlight the commonality among these artists of varying backgrounds and cultures.

“As a country of immigrants, the main thing is for people to connect and see that we all have more similarities than differences,” she says. “This is the first time all these artists who come from Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Mexico, Brazil, Cuba and Spain have been exhibited together.”

“The scope of work and range of talents and techniques in this exhibition are truly international and showcase contemporary art through a Latin American lens,” Ms. Forero says. “We touch on themes of duality, embracing cultural differences and exploring identity.”

Emilia Chang is one of the Palm Beach County artists featured in the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County’s “Contemporary Art of the Latin American Diaspora” exhibition. Pictured: “Aya Huma” (acrylic on paper). COURTESY PHOTO

Emilia Chang is one of the Palm Beach County artists featured in the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County’s “Contemporary Art of the Latin American Diaspora” exhibition. Pictured: “Aya Huma” (acrylic on paper). COURTESY PHOTO

“These works speak about the Latin American and Hispanic diaspora and the artists’ experience of their journeys to this country,” Ms. Forero says. “All these artists bring their unique experience of their or their family’s arrival to this country.”

For Dana Donaty, a Colombian-American artist raised in New Jersey, she says she’s happy to be included in a show of Hispanic and Latin American artists and is sometimes overlooked as she is of mixed heritage. Her mother’s family is Colombian and Peruvian and her father’s family German and Irish. Although her Spanish language skills need improvement, she credits her artistic leanings to her mother’s side of the family.

“I’m pleased to be part of this conversation,” she says. “I identify culturally with the Hispanic side of my family and they were the ones who nurtured the artist in me.” In fact, her mother, her aunt and cousins were all painters and her maternal grandfather, Eduardo Cárdenas, was invited to emigrate to the U.S. as the first editor of “Selecciones del Readers Digest” [the Spanish version of “Readers Digest”].

Her painting, “America’s Got Talent,” and her mixed-media sculpture, “Whalby,” are part of the council’s show. With her paintings, Ms. Donaty explores identity and memory and our unique and shared moments of what she calls “cultural cringe.” She pokes at the bright colors, exposing a darker side of what lies underneath.

Whalby is a creature brought to life from one of Ms. Donaty’s paintings, using the technique of paradolia, (the ability to see images in random patterns, such as clouds). Ms. Donaty employs this method in much of her work, letting her subconscious take over.

Influenced by popular culture, including TV (“The Carol Burnett Show,” “Sesame Street” and Norman Lear), magazines, including “Highlights Magazine” from her childhood and artists Cosima von Bonin, Portia Munson and Mike Kelley, known for his large stuffed animals and perspective on consumerism, Ms. Donaty employs all these influences in her work.

“What’s in my work is in my life,” she says.

Mexican-born, Boca Raton-based artist Mr. Castelán, 35, came to this country illegally in 1993 at the age of 7 with his mother and two younger sisters to join his father, already working in New York City.

They settled in Spanish Harlem, where Mr. Castelán, who was drawing from an early age, became inspired by the painter James de la Vega, a community artist known for his murals and sidewalk chalk drawings. Mr. Castelán learned that there is dedication, discipline and a process involved in creating art, and at 18, knew he wanted to be an artist. He went on to earn his MFA from Hunter College in New York City in 2017 and became a U.S. citizen that same year.

Now living in Boca Raton, Mr. Castelán is fascinated by the duality of being and his work reflects themes of presence and absence, fact and fantasy, reason and madness. He draws on his cultural background, personal stories, literature and art history to create artwork rife with symbolism.

“I’m honored to be included in the Cultural Council’s Latin American exhibition,” Mr. Castelán says. “My work is political, but not didactic. And, as Latin American artists, we all have something to share and contribute to the rest of the art world.”

Included in the show are his 2021 drawing and collage, titled, “Long Live The Queen,” created with gold and silver leaf, ink and acrylic markers, making reference to the labor movement and his 8×9-ft.mixed-mediapainting “Our Mothers Have Not Abandoned Us.”

Inspired by Mexican painter, David Alfaro Siqueiros’s 1932 mural, “America Tropical Oprimida y Destrozada por los Imperialismos,” (Tropical America: Oppressed and Destroyed by Imperialism”) the work is a social commentary referencing Jean Jacques Rousseau’s “The Social Contract” and employs Chicano, Aztec and other indigenous imagery and the spiritual, political and psychological symbol of La Virgin de Guadalupe.

Other artists in the show include, Andrea Facusse, Diana Garcia, Arlet Gomez, Lucia Gomez, Nestor Guzman, Ms. Patricia Maguire, Eduardo Mendieta, Erika Meza and Javier Lopez, Enido Michelini, Luis Montoya and Leslie Ortiz, Christine Anne Nightingale, Marianela Perez, Missy Pierce, Jamie Rodriguez, Izel Vargas and Joseph Velasquez.

The exhibition will include opportunities for tours in both Spanish and English. The council will host a member preview at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 27. Artists from the exhibition will answer questions and discuss their work. A free art talk also will take place at 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, at 2 p.m., with a panel discussion led by Ms. Forero.

This free public exhibition is in the Main Gallery at the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County, at 601 Lake Ave. in Lake Worth Beach. It’s open noon-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays. Info: 561-471- 2901 palmbeachculture.com. ¦

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