FAIRFIELD, CONN.- Fairfield University Art Museum and the Art Museum, University of Saint Joseph are presenting Gladys Triana: A Path to Enlightenment 1971-2021, a two-venue exhibition featuring the work of artist Gladys Triana, on view September 23 to December 17, 2022.

Gladys Triana is a Cuban-born, New York-based, multi-disciplinary artist whose work rebels against authoritarian rule and the oppression of hegemonies. For decades her immersive installations, sculptures, drawings, and paintings reflected two axes around which her life turned and her art was nourished: her condition of having lived since 1969 in exile from her native island, and her stubborn, continuous exploration of the ontology of women. Her more recent videos and photographs reveal her discovery of an abstract language for transcendence. This exhibition in two venues, running simultaneously at the Fairfield University Art Museum, and at the Art Museum, University of Saint Joseph, includes works from the 1970s to the present. The artwork at Fairfield will focus on her early years in New York, and her sense of exile and feelings of isolation. Both venues of the exhibition are supported in part by Benjamin Ortiz and Victor Torchia, Jr.

Fairfield University Art Museum executive director Carey Weber notes, “we are thrilled to be collaborating with the Art Museum, University of Saint Joseph – having two venues for this exhibition is allowing us to present close to 100 works created by Triana between 1971 and 2021. This is an amazing opportunity to place Triana’s artworks in dialogue with one another, and to offer overdue critical attention to her artistic practice in all of the many media in which she has worked in the course of her long and distinguished career.” Ann H. Sievers, director of the Art Museum, University of Saint Joseph adds “We hope that the current exhibition, shared between academic museums – each with its own regional audience – will demonstrate the value in expanding the examination of an important artist’s work through two thematically organized venues. The West Hartford venue traces the artist’s transition from a focus on the ontology of women to abstract works of spiritual transcendence.”

At Fairfield, the exhibition will be on view in the museum’s Walsh Gallery, located in the Quick Center for the Arts. It will also be accessible online through the museum’s website as a video tour. In conjunction with the exhibition, and with the assistance of faculty liaison Silvia Marsans-Sakly (Associate Professor of the Practice, Islamic World), the Fairfield University Art Museum has organized a full roster of public programs which will be presented both in person and streaming online via thequicklive.com.




The fully illustrated exhibition catalogue, website, and educational materials are all presented bi-lingually in Spanish.

Gladys Triana was born in Camagüey, Cuba in 1937, and has lived in New York City since 1975. Triana completed her B.A. at Mercy College in 1976, and M.A. at Long Island University in 1977. She also studied printmaking at San Fernando University in Madrid, Spain from 1970-1972. In 1957, Triana’s paintings caught the eye of artist Mario Carreño, Director of the Museo de Bellas Artes in Havana, Cuba. Carreño included her work in a group exhibition at the museum, marking the beginning of a long career for Triana, who has since been described as one of the most authentic and versatile Cuban artists of her generation.

Triana is the recipient of two Cintas Fellowships in Art, two Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grants in 2015-16 and 2018-19, the Joan Mitchell Foundation’s CALL Program grant, and was the 2016 recipient of the Centro Cultural Cubano de Nueva York’s Amelia Peláez Award. Triana’s work has been presented in numerous solo exhibitions and group shows around the U.S. and abroad, including at the Bronx Museum of the Arts; El Museo del Barrio; El Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo; El Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago de Chile; El Museo de la Ciudad, Mexico; Housatonic Museum of Art; NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale; Frost Art Museum, Miami, and ASU Art Museum, Arizona. More information and work can be found at www.gladystriana.com
About the Curators:

Aluna Curatorial Collective is a non-profit organization created to promote a wide range of dialogues among artistic practices through a continuous and open invitation for artists to engage in its projects. Adriana Herrera earned her PhD from Florida International University with an interdisciplinary dissertation in Literature and Art History. Her curatorial vision searches for the connection between intimacy and the collective, the personal and the social realms, and the interest for the need and possibilities of imagination. Willy Castellanos is an art historian, curator and photographer, with a degree in History of Arts from the University of Havana.