Walter Maciel Gallery Los Angeles, California, USA painting, mixed media, exhibitions2020
This new body of work, revisits the utopian promise of Modernism while paying homage South America’s Pre-Columbian gold empire and my cultural identity as a Colombian-American. The paintings in Future Ruana adopt several visual languages: abstraction, collage, watercolor painting, screen-printing, fabric and sequin appliqués. The show is named after the humble ruana, a woolen poncho worn up and down the Andes used as a multipurpose, utilitarian object for warmth and protection or laid on the floor for comfort as a rug or bed. Here the ruana is reimagined as both a metaphorical object with speculative implications like a magic carpet or as a cape for flying, and also as a visual component where the underlying structure of the ruana serve as compositional strategy for the paintings.