Exhibit celebrates Caribbean American Heritage Month
Elisa Lejuez scours the northern beaches of Aruba for natural material for her artwork.
She tries to beat the beach cleaners poised to clear the sand of driftwood, rocks and other material before tourists arrive.
Lejuez created a series of pieces inspired by her native land’s cave paintings, which she toured and photographed before creating silk screen printings and combining them with healing stones, driftwood and rocks.
“They were very inspiring to me,” she said of the caves.
Lejuez’s artwork is on display in “Caribbean Colorful Diversity,” an exhibition celebrating Caribbean American Heritage Month and running through Aug. 28 in the Ansin Family Art Gallery at the Miramar Cultural Center.
“This is one of the loveliest art exhibits I’ve seen,” said Valerie Gammon, the center’s director of cultural affairs. “It really captured me.
Haitian-born artist Asser Saint-Val’s pieces are created from such materials as coffee, shoe polish, cocoa powder and tea bags, specifically chosen for their pigment.
“I combine it with the paint,” the Miami-based art- ist said. “I’m also taking food that is bad for you and making it beautiful. My artwork is very much about chaos.”
His series is also about the metaphysical, godliness and conflicting views on them. He helps viewers explore them with titles taken from footnotes, with page number and author included.
“Without the title, the viewer would have to get something they interpret,” he said. “With the title, it helps you make connections I want you to make.”
Each piece includes human arms and legs in some fashion.
“I have to incorporate the human form in there because we carry (godliness),” Saint-Val said. “I use a lot of women legs because metaphysically, the male does not exist. Think of Mother Earth.”
Cuban-born artist Ana Amada Ferrer left New York City for a more natural setting. She ended up just outside of Woodstock, where she found a cocoon.
Inspired by the confining space freeing a butterfly, Ferrer stayed in the area for two months creating her cocoon series out of torched wood, acrylics and pastel paint. Three of the 10-piece series are on display in Miramar.
“This came with being fed up with New York and phones and the Internet,” she said. “Sometimes you’re just craving nature.”
The other artists exhibited are Cuban-born photographer Luis Castaneda, Haitian-born and Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Carl Juste and Cubanborn mixed media artist Armando Tejuca.
For more information, visit www.miramarculturalcenter.org
Fallan Patterson can be reached at fpatterson@ tribune.com.