LatchKey Gallery is pleased to present Sombras Fracturadas | Fractured Shadows, the inaugural exhibition in New York of Puerto Rican based artist, Emanuel Torres. The exhibition will be on view from November 5 through December 19, 2020 at 323 Canal Street, NYC, with an artist’s reception on December 5, 2020.
Sombras Fracturadas | Fractured Shadows consists of new paintings created during the spring and summer of 2020 while the artist was in quarantine. The exhibition explores the fractured relationship between Puerto Rico, the artist’s home country, and the United States. Characterized by careful compositions of shapes and color, Torres’ rhythmic paintings imbue a rich and complex history of painting informed by surrealism and abstract expressionism.
In this new body of work, Torres’ creative process begins first with a gesture of blue – a color, historically perceived as “beyond dimension.” The artist then builds his canvases out with a somatic instinct, creating heavy markings and curved, oval shapes that appear reminiscent to fragmented figures. These anatomical configurations allude to the psychological repercussions of a colonized nation, legally and culturally “othered” in relation to its colonizer, the United States.
The exhibition culminates with the colossal Mar de Sombra, at its center. Measuring 7 feet by 8 feet, the painting is a cascade of dense, intricate shapes. Playful brushwork weaves through the canvas drawing the viewer’s eye to the center of the piece before bursting outward, as if breaking apart.
Emanuel Torres was awarded with the Pollock-Krasner foundation grant in 2018. He has exhibited at the Museum of Art and Design, Miramar, and throughout Puerto Rico, California, Florida and Japan. Torres graduated from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras with a BA in theatre and philosophy and continued his studies in video art, installation and performance at the University of Puerto Rico, Cayey.
A catalogue will accompany the exhibition with an essay by artist Rafael Trelles.
