Bridges not walls

The second showing of my exhibition Mangled Hopes for Bridges continues a process begun through the Destination Venezuela event with the Vicksburg Cultural Arts Center last year (see previous posts) and was now on show for Hispanic Heritage month at the KVCC Arcus Gallery and Center for New Media. I could not have asked for a more suitable showcase in Kalamazoo for my paintings and a chance to discuss the issues in the accompanying webinar (links below).

In the quiet of the pandemic there had been a change in focus, a shift in gaze from landscape and built environment to the people who were now absent from it at least around me. But the steady pedestrian stream over the border from Venezuela to Columbia as documented in Tulio Hernandez journalistic work did not diminish, on the contrary becoming ever more urgent as the pandemic worsened in Venezuela, never leaving my minds eye. As the English art historian Griselda Pollock articulated so perfectly in a podcast I heard while at work, most artists don’t usually know exactly what they want to say, it’s more of a compulsion that moves you to explore a theme visually.

This body of work continued to grow during the stops and starts in pandemic isolation over the last year and the expanding spaces in Vicksburg that have become available to me. In June I left behind the sweet downtown sanctuary of the Candystore (see the Short Walk series of three videos below) moving to the top floor of the Papermill itself, more physically challenging but so much more rewarding in terms of space and light. The results of working in this new space were immediately put on show with the large astro-turf instalation, a map-portal to complement the shifting continents from the floor of the Candystore before.

As one of the many threads that weave briefly together in this Michigan braid, I feel so enchanted to have this opportunity, thinking I probably wouldn’t have more than a spare bedroom for a studio, not really even daring to imagine that such a generous home for my imagination could open up. It required some effort as my daily commute turned into a 3 hour bicycle ride, but all the more invigorating for it.

The Mill @ Vicksburg is an amazing project and at a point in time where the spaces are now more apt for artists to carry out their residencies in it as it is slowly cleaned and stabilized, adapted and renovated. I love the feeling of endless possibilities as the project evolves, along with the discreet companionship of the workforce who occaisionally come to observe my onsite drawings. The long halls literally opening up as bricked in windows are uncovered and rooves removed and the sun pours in to spaces that have not seen light of day in decades, maybe almost a century.

It is energising to be involved in rebuilding when you leave behind such a path of destruction.

Thankyou to the KVCC, Arcus Gallery + Center for New Media and Sam Zomer for the photographs

“Venezuela or the largest migration of the first quarter of the 21st century“, Tulio Hernández

“Venezuela o la más grande migración del primer trienio del siglo XXI latinoamericano”, Tulio Hernández