Scherezade Garcia

 New Exhibition: Scherezade Garcia Collective Portraits: The Map in My Skin

 
Scherezade Garcia, Sugar Under the Spanish Lace (detail), 2022, Acrylic on canvas, 64 x 51 in.

IBIS Contemporary Art Gallery is thrilled to announce the upcoming solo exhibition by Scherezade Garcia titled Collective Portraits: The Map in My Skin from the series Reframing America. The exhibition opens November 5th through December 23rd with an Artist's Reception on November 5th, 5-9 pm. The installation will include soft sculpture, large paintings, and works on paper.

Of this exhibition, The Map in My Skin, Garcia writes, "As a Latinx contemporary artist, my work is concerned with creating narratives essential to understanding Las Americas and the American experience. My work intends to unveil the many ongoing cultural encounters that continuously shape and reshape how we view and perceive color in America. The majority of what I create is centered on the politics of inclusion. History plays a central role in my artistic practice of decoding and deconstructing visual narratives of power."

Garcia is a storyteller, the universal story of migration. Her work embodies the transitioning of people and places across history and cultures, and how they are perceived. She balances a duality of tragedy and beauty in both the subject and form.  Figures from pop culture and religious iconography swim in watery blues and rhythmic wave patterns symbolic of the Atlantic Ocean. A monumental soft sculpture of a pink life jacket evokes both peril and hope with reflective irony.  To view these works together will be an immersion into Scherezade Garcia's layered, exquisite and profound visual tales.

New Orleans is a special place for Scherezade Garcia. In 2017, she was awarded a month-long residency at the Joan Mitchell Center, which is based in New Orleans. When the directors from IBIS asked her about exhibiting, she was happy for the opportunity to return to the Crescent City. Garcia describes her work in NOLA and her connection to the city in her book From This Side of the Atlantic, "The body of work I developed at the Joan Mitchell Foundation Center in New Orleans is inspired by my ancestral history and my fascination with the American experience." 

Internationally renowned, Garcia was born in Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic and is currently based in New York and Austin. Solo and duo exhibitions of Garcia's work are included in Praxis Art Gallery, NYC where she is represented, The Art Museum of the Americas, Clifford Art Gallery at Colgate University, Miller Theater at Columbia University, Lehman College Art Gallery, Crossroads Gallery at the University of Notre Dame, Museo de Arte de Santo Domingo, and more. She has participated in the Havana Biennial, the International Biennial of Paintings at Haute de Cagnes, the IV Caribbean Biennial, Trienal Poli/GráUca de San Juan, Latin American Biennial, BRIC Biennial, Venice Autonomous Biennial, and international fairs. Garcia's work is also included in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Art Museum of the Americas, El Museo del Barrio, The Housatonic Museum of Art, El Museo de Arte Moderno in Santo Domingo, and others. Garcia is the recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant (2015) and the Colene Brown Art Prize (2020). An edited monograph on her work Scherezade Garcia: From This Side of the Atlantic, was published in 2020 by the Art Museum of the Americas. 

As a reminder, SARAH NAVASSE'S solo exhibition The Falling Sky will continue through September 29th.  This is an exquisite collection of large to small drawings, layered in dream fragments of carousels, figures and flora patterns.  

In addition, we have a small selection of artists from the gallery in our Middle Gallery.  On view now is Jason DeMarte, Tylonn J. Sawyer, and Austin Uzor. Please go to https://ibisartgallery.com for more information.

Thank you!

Margaret Davis, Co-Director

Louis Marinaro Co-Director

Ibis Contemporary Art Gallery

705 Camp Street

New Orleans, LA  70130

734-476-7918