MIAMI, FLA.- LnS Gallery presents Transcendentalism, Distilled a solo exhibition of the influential and timeless modern artist, Rafael Soriano. This exhibition highlights the final prolific decade in Soriano’s reputable career which spanned over 60 years, and will be the first comprehensive exhibition discussing his paintings completed in the 1990s. Transcendentalism, Distilled is on view at LnS Gallery located at 2610 SW 28th Lane in Miami, through February 25, 2023.
The accompanying catalogue features an exhibition essay by Alejandro Anreus, Ph.D., a chronology by Carol Damian, Ph. D., and a poem by US Poet Laureate Richard Blanco. The amalgamation of literature, both scholarly and artistic, is a facet of the exhibition that demonstrates the scope of Soriano’s influence beyond the visual arts. The artworks reproduced in the publication and displayed in the exhibition each reveal a visual language where the maturity in composition and palette provide clarity in his career-long journey to illustrate the depth unique to the internal experience for an external world.
As Alejandro Anreus states in the essay, “Rafael Soriano: The Last Decade,” these pieces “fill the space with a solidity that simultaneously moves back and forth and across the surface. While earlier work can be life-affirming through the sensuality of the forms, the late works evoke a different transcendence exploring a serene acceptance.” Richard Blanco’s poem “Anatomy of Light” further conveys the breadth of sensations and impressions of Soriano’s imagery through his unique perception and exquisite command of text.
“The work of Rafael Soriano acts as Humanity’s Kaleidoscope. His prolific career displays immense diversity in subject, parallel to the range of human emotion and experience. The late period that we are honored to be presenting here at LnS can be seen as a representation of the abundant wisdom collected throughout a lifetime, translated through oil paint on canvas,” states Luisa Lignarolo, Co-Director of LnS Gallery.
This exhibition is made possible through the collaboration and consistent passion brought by the Rafael Soriano Foundation. Led by his daughter, Hortensia Soriano, the foundation aims to promote exhibitions, scholarship, and the placement of Rafael Soriano’s work in important museums and collections to be appreciated globally for future generations.
The Rafael Soriano Foundation is pleased to announce a Curator in Residence Program to further the scholarship of Soriano’s works. The program is located in Coral Gables and houses the Foundation archives. Artifacts tell the story of Soriano’s professional and personal life, ranging from his youth, the exile of him and his family, his adjustment to Miami, the ensuing transitional period, and the development of his mature style.
As Hortensia Soriano states, “the Rafael Soriano Foundation’s mission is to preserve and encourage an understanding and appreciation of Soriano’s artwork as one of the leading Latin American artists of his generation. As an institution, we believe that his work belongs on the world stage. LnS Gallery has the vision and programming to accomplish this through education and exhibits such as Transcendentalism, Distilled. The audience will sense the journey of Soriano’s transcendence and experience his travels to other worlds. As my father expressed, ‘I do not pretend to transmit a message of reality. I am moved by the longing to travel within my paintings, in a dimension of sprit, where the intimate and the cosmic converge.’”
Rafael Soriano (1920, Matanzas, Cuba - 2015, Miami, Florida), a pioneer of Latin American modernism, infused his work with explorations of spiritualism to uncover the vastness that lies in the human experience and its inevitable presence in the arts. Soriano created a body of work that aims to showcase the luminosity of raw existence, memory, or emotion, translated for terrestrial consumption through each surrealistic composition. Soriano’s mature style calls to classical roots. The use of stark, abyss-like backgrounds to frame his subjects, and the meticulous layering of paint evoking the atmosphere found throughout the Renaissance, is revamped with an introspective lens developed by modern theology.
Soriano’s work forms part of world-renowned permanent collections, some being the Art Museum of the Americas (Washington, DC), Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, DC), Blanton Museum of Art (Austin, TX), Denver Art Museum (Denver, CO), Galeria de Arte Moderno (Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic), Long Beach Museum of Art (Long Beach, CA), McMullen Museum of Art (Boston, MA), Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Havana, Cuba), Lowe Art Museum (Miami, FL), Museo de Arte Zea (Medellin, Colombia), NSU Art Museum (Ft. Lauderdale, FL) and the Pérez Art Museum Miami (Miami, FL).
