Dominican art exhibit at QMA

Tropical sunburst reds and ocean blues have transformed the Queens Museum of Art during the recent kick off celebration of Dominican Heritage Month.
The February 7 to March 7, 2010 exhibit titled “Hibridos” features for the first time ever at the Queens Museum of Art (QMA) several evocative Dominican artists whose work carry over a variety of mediums but who all equivocally capture the vibrancy and juxtapositions of Dominican culture.
“This group show clearly establishes the socio-cultural hybridization that permeates Dominican visual arts,” said curator Dio-genes Abreu in regards to the milieu of people that settled – by force or choice – and influenced the Dominican Republic, including the Spaniards, Africans, the indigenous Taino Indians, Arabs, Japanese, Chinese, Sephardic Jews and Caribbean Blacks. “Given that reality, it is not unusual to see Dominican subjects express their cultural identity through various aesthetic elements of different cultural backgrounds.”
The nine artists have styles that range from the photojournalism of carnival subjects by Isaias Amaro and of the destitute in New York City by Maximiliano Medina, to the installation art of Abreu depicting the challenging, controversial but inevitable symbiosis of the Dominican Republic and Haiti to the U.S., to the thought provoking oil on canvas compositions of Tania Marmolejo, whose nude women disturb but force contemplation on one’s morality and judgment of others. Other artists included Jesus Betances, Ismael Checo, Jorge Chiringo and Rafael de los Santos.
The youngest of the exhibitors, the U.S. born 24-year-old Raquel Manuela Colon, described her abstract art as “where the optical meets surrealism.” Her work, which looks like microscopic underwater corals or neurons, represents living things and “its one big poetic expression of how our lives meet whether in a positive or negative way,” she said.
The exhibit organized by the Hispanic/Latino Cultural Center of New York (HLCCNY) and the Dominico-American Visual Artist Collective hopes to continue providing space within the borough of Queens for Dominicans to express their culture, whether through art, music, theater, literature and poetry.
“Our organization promotes the Hispanic culture and we want to promote something different, something out of the ordinary,” said Juan Tinneo, executive director of HLCCNY, who hopes QMA invites them back next year. “We believe that highlighting this aspect of the culture is important, especially for the youth.”
Dominicans worldwide celebrate their heritage during the month when the nation won its independence from Haiti on February 27, 1844.