In Depth of Identity II, Miami artists bring family histories to the surface.
by Jake Cline
Attendees of the fifth annual Heritage Fest will have the opportunity to tour the Arsht Center’s latest visual-arts exhibition, Depth of Identity II. Curated by Miami gallerist and former Arsht Center Trust Board member Rosie Gordon Wallace, the show features works by three South Florida artists: Shawna Moulton, Devora Perez and Asser Saint-Val. The title operates on multiple levels, not all of them obvious.
Subtitled “Art as Memory and Archive,” the show and its more than 50 drawings, sculptures and paintings are rooted in the artists’ family histories, Caribbean heritage and their ideas about their present and future selves. This is most keenly expressed in Moulton’s ink-on-paper and mixed-media portraits. Some of her pieces, such as “Mama and Papa” and “Cornerstone #2,” combine charcoal cutouts of faces and arms with body parts drawn directly on the Center’s walls.
“The portraits reference family photos,” Moulton, who was born in the Bahamas and raised in Jamaica, said during an artists talk in December moderated by Wallace. “I’m talking to my mom, my grandmother, my aunts, my uncles about our history. … My work has a past, present and future aspect to it.”
("Mama and Papa" by Shawna Moulton. Photo by Jake Cline.)
Perez, who describes herself as a sculptor who thinks like a painter, is represented in the exhibition by lucent, monochromatic sheets of acrylic framed in wood. Her pieces also bear the influence of family. Her father worked in construction, and would often keep building materials around the house, creating the effect of an “in-between space” that Perez said now contains her art.
“I’m always thinking about identity,” she said. “[In Miami,] we’re constantly shifting, moving and not really preserving our history.”
Nothing feels settled in the works Saint-Val contributed to this show. Bulbous, oversize “air sculptures” droop from the lobby walls of the Knight Concert Hall and Ziff Ballet Opera House. Darkly hued, they resemble slippery deep-sea creatures that have somehow washed ashore. His paintings are equally inscrutable, presenting grotesque, vaguely steampunk beings with outstretched human limbs or torsos descending into — or are they rising from? — the ocean. More fascinating still, Saint-Val has created them from a mixture of acrylic paint, pantry items (salt, flour, coffee grinds) and household refuse (“vacuum dust”) and tagged them with menacing titles such as “I have allowed you to perform your task!”
“It is about the transformation of things,” Saint-Val said of his approach. “I really have no limits in terms of what I use.”
("MQNTUIVRS II" by Asser Saint-Val. Photo by Jake Cline.)
Depth of Identity II will be on display at the Arsht Center until Sunday, February 18. At 4 p.m., Sunday, February 4, Wallace will lead guests on a tour of the exhibition as part of the Center’s Heritage Fest 2024: African Americans and the Arts. Admission to the festival and exhibition tour are free.
(Top: Photo by Roy Wallace.)