Echoes of Life: Fragments of Reality
Organized by Lance Minto-strouse
Participating Artist: Kayla Henriquez, Dylan Matamoros, Daniel Maya, lance minto-strouse, Pat Pat
Pat Pat
Echoes of Life: Fragments of Reality
"Echoes of Life" refers to the reverberations of lived experiences, memories, and moments that linger in our consciousness. It reflects how our past experiences still influence us in the present and future. "Fragments of Reality,"on the other hand, refers to pieces or glimpses of the real world that are captured, isolated, and represented in a particular context, mainly emphasizing specific moments, details, or perspectives that reveal deeper truths.
As practitioners, we create moments that encapsulate time, space, and our perspectives. We gather materials, infuse them with our essence and ideas, and bind them together to tell the collective story from different viewpoints—voicing our ideas of change and hope, whispering our woes through the Echoes of Life and Fragments of Reality.
We invite you to venture with us through our encapsulated perspectives of the collective experience.
Kayla Henriquez - Artist Statement
I view my work with symbolism. My process of strategically choosing and utilizing each medium in my work is essential because it is influenced by the separation of my family and me. I strategically chose each medium in my work and the meaning of each shape I create within the linework and the overall structure of the pieces. I create my work using different methods. One is using flat sheets of watercolor paper and working on it with my linework and mixed media. I also enjoy manipulating the paper surface by cutting out some parts of it in irregular shapes and then rearranging them within the piece to represent separation, displacement, and detachment, along with reunion and hope. Another method is constructing layers and overlapping strips of stained sheets of paper using various mediums to form a lattice structure. I use the lattice form as my technique to represent a symbolic bond between all of my intentions and the bond that I have with my family, although they are far away. Among the multiple common materials I use, like acrylic paint, watercolor ink, pens, and markers, I also form stains from natural materials. Mediums like soil from my grandparent’s yard in “el comino,” Cuba, soil from “el campo” of the Dominican Republic, and Florida soil from my yard. I also use other materials such as the Cuban coffee grounds of La Llave (my maternal grandparent’s favorite coffee), orange blossom tea (Florida’s state flower; the orange blossom), chamomile tea (a tea my mom would always give me as a child and throughout my upbringing) and mahogany bark stain (mahogany/caoba is Dominican Republic’s (D.R.) national tree whose bark my paternal grandmother would form a stain with and then use it to dye her hair when she lived in the D.R.). Using these powerful mediums, I begin the process by creating a stain from each. I then pour and splash the stain across the paper and use the unpredictability of each stain's mark. I use thin markers of different colors to form hand-drawn patterns and repetitions on top of the uncontrolled, organic nature of the splatters, developing a sense of movement. To create a strong contrast, I use black markers to draw my intricate patterns, which allows me to create a sense of depth. I often also use red, white, and blue, which evoke the colors of my heritage: the Cuban, Dominican, and American flags
Daniel Maya - Artist Statement
My work is an exploration of the quiet amalgamation of all things observed in the world. Each piece is a reflection of the moments, people, and environments that make up the tapestry of daily living. Just as we are constantly moving through time, navigating a blend of emotions, routines, and surprises, my art reflects that fluidity. It pulls from the seen and unseen, the subtle and the overwhelming. I believe art is not just a representation of a singular moment or idea, but a synthesis of the countless fragments of life we encounter—both mundane and extraordinary. It is through the layering of these influences, consciously and subconsciously absorbed, that I seek to produce work that resonates with the feeling of daily existence.
Pat Pat - Artist Statement
The core of my work is built up by a flow state. My life practice includes making paintings, drawings, book-binding and poetry.
Planted deep within all of my work is a colorful seed that I call “entropy”. Reflecting on the chaotic waves of ADHD that take over my students, I know that there is a beautiful blossoming personality behind every smile. Nutrients are metaphorically reinforced through structure or “negentropy”. My father has a green thumb and he passed that baton to me. My mother was a pre-K teacher for a myriad of years, and that inherited love for children is the chlorophyll in my soul.
My process refers to the chemical activity in compost. It begins when I bring creative projects to a workspace i.e. museums and schools. I collaborate with students & talk about art, news, environmental-awareness, public transportation, friendship, video games, wellness and architecture. Through the “heating up” of this pile of information- I get inspired from their project and use that as fuel for mine. Artists that inspire me and influence my work are: Aramis O'Reilly, Takashi Murakami, Julie Mehretu, Ulla Von Brandenburg, Mitsuhiro Arita, Edgar Degas and Henri Matisse.
Dylan Matamoros - Artist Statement
The Most Cuban Man Alive is a painting series fueled by humor and satire using cartoon-like imagery challenging the idea of what it really means to be Cuban and Cuban American. Whenever Matamoros tells someone that he is Cuban, he has expressed that they immediately dismiss his claim, arguing that he is not a “real” Cuban due to his appearance, behavior, and lack of fluency in Spanish. However, he uses these paintings to challenge those claims by incorporating cultural references while also raising the question: Am I only Cuban if I am reinforcing stereotypes? Matamoros, highlights the stereotypes in his work to not only lightheartedly celebrate his culture, but further prove his point about the arguments against him. Matamoros sees cartoons as a powerful tool that can be used to not only provide comic relief, but to effectively challenge topics that do not reach solutions in regular discourse. He feels that poking fun or applying humor to topics that tend to be more serious will allow for a more light hearted conversation that will eventually lead to reflective commentary. Matamoros strives to create an ongoing conversation with the audience that is initially fueled by humor, because he feels that he is truly bonding with someone when he is able to make them laugh. He finds this new personal relationship helps him create a sense of community that will allow him to continue exploring the hilarity of the topics that he is addressing, while also learning the viewer’s perspective on universal experiences such as understanding one’s identity.
lance minto-strouse - Artist Statement
lance minto-strouse is a multidisciplinary artist working with painting, sculpture, digital art, film and collage. He explores temporality through the history of reclaimed materials to create dialogue concerning, systematic iniquity, disposability, community and race. Minto-strouse is an alchemist who applies the transformative process to find new and more relatable ways of understanding humanity . He sees the outside world as an extension of his studio. He assembles interactive community based sculptures to generate dialogue that reflect new understandings of the past as a way to build our future. Lance crafts this as a way of honoring and paying homage to rituals rooted in his Afro-spiritual ancestral origins.
“Hope is essential to any political struggle for radical change when the overall social climate promotes disillusionment and despair.”
-bell hooks.