Bony Ramirez, a self-taught artist from the Dominican Republic, is having his first solo museum exhibition, "Cattleya," at the Newark Museum of Art in New Jersey. The exhibition is a result of his yearlong residency at the museum and features a body of work that is in dialogue with the institution's permanent collection.
Inspiration and Themes
Ramirez's work is inspired by Martin Johnson Heade's Cattleya Orchid with Two Hummingbirds (ca. 1880s), which blurs the line between still life and landscape painting. Ramirez uses the Cattleya orchid as a metaphor for colonialism, exploring the legacies of colonialism, particularly through the lens of tourism.
Works in the Exhibition
The exhibition features several mixed-media paintings and installations that weave the story of Caribbean life from the start of colonialism to the present. Some notable works include:
- Sitting on a Bucket of Paint (Self-Portrait as a Calf), an installation of a suspended taxidermy calf wrapped in metal chains, representing the labor and prison-like conditions of creating a paradise in the Caribbean for others.
- Cattleya, a large portrait of an aristocratic mulatto woman who wears a large, dark-colored flower gown with puffy white sleeves, holding the head of a bleeding chicken in one hand, and its body in the other.
- Caribe Express/Caribe Tours, a 27-foot-wide painting that shows men in vejigante masks serving tourists who lounge in a resort's glistening pool, highlighting the effects of tourism on local communities.
Artist's Statement
Ramirez aims to create a reality that helps viewers escape their own, but also confronts them with the harsh realities of colonialism and tourism. He wants his work to reflect the culture and experiences of people from the Caribbean, and to inspire hope and resilience in the face of adversity.
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