July 14 – Sept 23 | Casita Maria – RONNY QUEVEDO Solo Exhibition HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE

On view July 14, September 23, 2015
ARTIST RECEPTION Tuesday, July 14, 2015 6 – 8 PM

Casita Maria is proud to present Bronx-based artist 
RONNY QUEVEDO’s solo exhibition HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE, curated by Christine Licata. On view are recent works that explore the psychological and emotional dimensions of time, space and place. His mixed-media drawings and sculptures of public and private sites create a visual language for “lived” experience of geography and architecture, incorporating unexpected, eclectic materials including contact paper and drywall, to rare materials such as gold leaf. Quevedo’s work explores the aesthetics of remembering as well as the physicality and spatial boundaries of memory. A place where time is measured not in months, days or years but in shape, form, construction, reaction, experience, beliefs and emotions.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

RONNY QUEVEDO is an Ecuadorian-born, Bronx-based interdisciplinary artist. He earned his MFA from Yale University and BFA from The Cooper Union. He has participated in residencies at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Project Row Houses, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, and Lower East Side Printshop. He has exhibited at the Queens Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Sicardi Gallery (Houston); Rush Arts Gallery (New York); Carol Jazaar Gallery (Miami); El Museo del Barrio; The Bronx River Art Center; Saltworks Gallery (Atlanta); and The Bronx Museum of the Arts. Upcoming projects include Open Sessions at The Drawing Center and Specter Field at Lawndale Arts Center (Houston). He will be participating in Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace residency program in 2015-2016.

On August 11, from 7-9 PM Critical Mass will be installed in Casita Maria’s theater for a one-night-only performance with local Bronx musicians and dancers.

Also as part of “Home Field Advantage,” Quevedo will be in conversation with fellow Bronx artist Abigail DeVille on Tuesday, September 15, from 6 – 8 PM. Together they will discuss their respective work, the theories behind their ideas and unconventional artistic processes.

The title of the exhibition, “Home Field Advantage,” is taken from the sports term that describes the perceived sense of leverage and strength that territorial ownership and belonging have upon athletes’ performance when competing in their home playing fields and stadiums. Also known as “psychogeography,” these effects of the geographical environment (consciously or not) on the emotions and behavior of individuals is an underlying influence in Quevedo’s practice. In addition, these fields of play are seen as “socially constructed places” in which actions are marked by universally agreed upon, precise measurements and guidelines as well as fixed and negotiable rules that are embedded within both the architecture and the players.

The main body of work on view, In The Paint is a series of drawings depicting aerial views of gymnasiums and sports arenas that create a visual language for these embodied sites. Designed from real and imagined places and left in a mediated state between construction and de-construction, the drawings explore the boundaries between diagrammatic and dialectical space, blurring visual representation (depiction) with experiential consciousness (phenomenology). Bringing to mind the ideas of competition, resiliency, adaptation and belonging, the drawings are cartographic charts of social negotiation, a metaphorical map that is symbolic of the larger civic constructs within society. In the case of migration or displacement, “learning the playing field” and the agreed upon “rules of engagement” in an unfamiliar environment or new system of laws is pivotal for survival.

In addition to collective experiences, individual perception plays an integral part in Quevedo’s work. Also on view is a new series of drawings based on the various homes he has lived in from his childhood to the present. Built from memory, these topoanalytic-based floorplans render his recollections into blueprints based on the temporality of the past and the subjectivity of the present. Using industrial manufactured materials such as mylar and vinyl, the layouts are meant to be read as architectural-based narratives of his experiences and family history.
This merging of the fluidity of time, physical places and psychosocial-emotional formed spaces, is also apparent in Quevedo’s Critical Mass, an interactive, plywood stage surrounded by brightly colored bulbs. The lights, at once both Broadway and bodega-esque, respond to the sound and movement of the performer. For Quevedo, the dance floor acts a votive or tribute to the iconic stages that held great performers such as Celia Cruz, La Lupe and Tito Puente as well as a platform for emerging artists who intrinsically embody their legacies and practices in their current practice.

ABOUT CASITA MARIA

CASITA MARIA CENTER FOR ARTS & EDUCATION is an 80-year old South Bronx-based community arts and educational organization that presents diverse, contemporary visual and performing arts and education programming for all ages. www.casitamaria.org

Media Contact
Marlena Fitzpatrick, Outreach & Marketing Manager
917-565-6983
mfitzpatrick@casitamaria.org