SAN ANTONIO, TX.- Ruiz-Healy Art currently has on view two concurrent solo exhibitions featuring new works by Peruvian born, Philadelphia based, artist Cecilia Paredes. This is Paredes’ fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. Cecilia Paredes: Walking In My Galaxy Blue opened at our New York City gallery on Thursday, September 21st. Cecilia Paredes : The Weaving of Dust opened at the San Antonio gallery on Thursday, September 28th, with an opening reception. A fully illustrated catalogue was published accompanied by an essay by art historian Emily Alesandrini.
Born in Lima, Peru, and based in Philadelphia since the early 2000s, Cecilia Paredes uses her camouflaged body as an expressive medium to interpret themes influenced by nature, femininity, transformation, and identity. Paredes explores these themes through ethereal “photo performances” where she camouflages her body against beautifully patterned backdrops and disappears amongst the ornamentation. By presenting herself as part of the landscape, Paredes is building her own identity in relation to the part of the world where she lives and raises the question of how our environment influences who we are.
In Walking in My Galaxy Blue and The Weaving of Dust Paredes presents a new collection of work exploring embodied relationships to the cosmos, celestial mythologies, and earthly vegetation. As stated by art historian Emily Alesandrini, “Her textile, performance, and painting-based practice refuses boundaries and reimagines correlations between planet, plant, and body.”
Walking In My Galaxy Blue, a reference to Paredes’ piece Galaxy Blue, evokes the vision of the personal landscape within her mind. Whether it be a dream or a parallel world that she possesses, everything within the natural world, from the stars and sun, to the never ending cosmos, the color blue is in her mind. Within the exhibitions, Paredes explores concepts of identity and the natural world channeled through her strong interest in ecology. Through her photo performances, Paredes’ physical form undergoes a transformation and she becomes one with nature and the cosmos. Paredes is engrossed in these natural elements and reinforces the idea that we are guests of mother nature.
The Artist
Born in Lima, Peru, Paredes often disguises her body against flora. The sweeping lines of foliage, along with the rich hues that adorn the backdrop and the artist’s body, place her in an intimate conversation with nature. Animals, natural resources, and textiles, also play a major role in the complex layers of Paredes’s oeuvre. In her photographs, she is deeply immersed with her surroundings, making it difficult for the spectator to distinguish where her body begins and where it ends.
Paredes pursued her Fine Arts studies at the Catholic University of Lima and Cambridge Arts in the UK. In 1998, she was awarded The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency Program. She lived and worked in Costa Rica from 1998 to 2004 and represented the country at the 51st Venice Biennial in 2005.
Cecilia Paredes received the 2014 International Award for Artistic Excellence at the Pingyao International Festival of Photography. She has exhibited widely in North, South, and Central America, Asia, Australia, and Europe with solo exhibitions at major institutions, including the Tabacalera Space, Madrid, Spain, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Russia, and the Costa Rica Museum of Art. Her work is in numerous collections, such as the Museo del Barrio, NY; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH); San Antonio Museum of Art, TX; and the Museum of Contemporary Art Panama.
