Arts + Literature Laboratory presents a solo exhibition by artist Richie Morales, titled The Effects of Time on Memory (Los efectos del tiempo sobre la memoria), which will be on display from May 13 through July 9, 2021, with a closing reception on July 9, 7-9pm. This immersive exhibition of 40 new paintings will fill the entire building. Inspired by a multitude of sources from the natural world, Morales uses the idea of the “origin of colors” as his inspiration for creating his vibrant, layered compositions.
Morales is a self-taught artist from Guatemala whose multifaceted works examine the impact of social, environmental, and economic violence across the world, and the role of art in social justice. He has been an artist fellow at Vermont Studio Center, an artist in residence for Centro Hispano of Dane County, and has exhibited paintings at galleries and community-based organizations in Guatemala and the United States. Morales currently occupies an artist studio at Arts + Literature Laboratory.
Morales has also collaborated with Latinx artists Natalia Hildner and Claudi Vaca to bring together visual art, choreography, and poetry inspired by the stories of local Latinx and Indigenous community members for a series of performances the weekend of June 4-6, 2021. This project, titled “Kachkaniraqmi" or "We Still Exist" is a multidisciplinary, multilingual showcase of Latinx voices at a time when our community is still suffering from multiple crises and recognizing the need to amplify voices that have been historically marginalized. The effects of the pandemic have been multiplied for Black and Indigenous communities and people of color. Many Latinx community members have faced increased risk and trauma as essential and frontline workers. Through art, the artists seek to initiate their own and their community’s healing of historical and current traumas through the power of their Latinx and Indigenous collective wisdom.
Special thanks to Dane Arts and the Madison Arts Commission for supporting this project, with additional funds from the Endres Manufacturing Company Foundation, the Evjue Foundation, Inc., charitable arm of The Capital Times, the W. Jerome Frautschi Foundation, and the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation, and the Wisconsin Arts Board.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, gallery hours are currently 12-5pm Thursday through Saturday or by appointment. Visitors inside the building are required to wear masks and practice social distancing, and the number of visitors will be limited according to current public health guidelines. Exhibition admission is free.
About the Exhibition
(excerpt from full lyric essay written by Bolivian poet/writer Claudia Vaca for this series)
The origin of colors in the work of painter Richie Morales invites us to sample light in its different layers.
In every culture there are different myths and legends about the origins of color, to read the pictopoyesis of Richie Morales takes me back to many of these myths that are alive in a diversity of languages and tongues, in different parts of the world. Overcoming anthropocentrism, to bring us closer to the ontological world of color and of his own aesthetics, exploring pain to heal ourselves.
To be immersed in the chant of each color, is to give oneself a mythical journey towards the aureolic strength and the incidence of light refalling on each tone and rhythm.
The effects of time understood as the breaking apart from divinities and our way of calling on them, from the horned God of the slavic forests, the god Chronos from the Greek culture eating their own children, the God Jichi from the Amazonian cultures, the Quetzal bird as an epiphany of freedom in danger of extinction, freedom to be, do, live, express what we long for, via singing, painting, poetry, dance, the plurality of manifestations of our souls.
The art of Richie Morales is about oral memory, stewarded memory, the memory of life in death and vice versa.
The effects of time on memory brings us closer to the fluttering wings of the dragonfly bordering the legend of the hummingbird in incendiary times.
(Translation by geryscopio_geryscope)
Los efectos del tiempo sobre la memoria
(extracto de ensayo lírico escrito por la escritora/poeta boliviana Claudia Vaca para esta serie)
El origen de los colores en la obra del pintor Richie Morales, nos invita a catar la luz en sus distintas etapas.
En cada cultura hay distintos mitos y leyendas sobre el origen del color, leer la pictopoiesis de Richie Morales me remonta a muchos de estos mitos que están vivos en diversidad de lenguas y lenguajes, en distintas partes del mundo, superando el antropocentrismo, nos acerca al mundo ontológico del color y de su propia estética, explora el dolor para sanarnos.
Dejarse sumergir por el canto de cada color, es regalarse un viaje mítico hacia la fuerza aureólica y la incidencia de la luz recayendo en cada tono y ritmo.
Los efectos del tiempo entendido como los quiebres de divinidades y modos de nombrarlos, desde el Dios astado de los bosques eslávicos, el Dios cronos de la cultura griega comiéndose a sus propios hijos, el Dios Jichi de las culturas amazónicas, el ave Quetzal como epifanía de la libertad en peligro de extinción, la libertad de ser, hacer, vivir, expresar lo que anhelamos, sea en el canto, la pintura, la poesía, la danza, la pluralidad de manifestaciones álmicas.
La obra de Richie Morales es sobre la memoria oral, la memoria guardada, la memoria de la vida en la muerte y viceversa.
Los efectos del tiempo sobre la memoria nos acercan al aleteo de la libélula bordeando la leyenda del colibrí en tiempos incendiarios.
