The Tropics

JORGE GONZALO FEDERICO

CAVELIER FUENMAYOR URIBE

THE Tropics

Front and back covers: Jorge Cavelier, Nieblas Rosadas (detail), 2021, Oil on linen, 26 x 60 inches

Tropics

JANUARY

JORGE GONZALO FEDERICO

CAVELIER FUENMAYOR URIBE

The tropical zone includes the geographical regions of earth closest to the equator. This area provides life to the richest variety of plant and animal species on the planet. The concentration of plant life, supported by the biodiversity around it, provides oxygen and ecological balance to the globe. The exhibition brings together a selection of artworks by three Colombian artists: Jorge Cavelier, Gonzalo Fuenmayor, and Federico Uribe. Each explore the impact this tropical ecosystem has had on their work. For each artist, the preservation of this landscape and the cultures that inhabit it are vitally important.

The group show will be held in our Palm Beach, Florida location – just north of the Tropic of Cancer (northern latitudinal line of the tropics). Through their work, we can see how the unmistakable tropical flora, fauna, and landscape translate in each artist’s creative practice, and derive deeper meaning and understanding of the cultures in this region.

JORGE CAVELIER

Bogotá, Colombia, b. 1953

After a brief incursion in architecture and a year of painting at New York University, New York, NY., Jorge Cavelier traveled to study in Florence, Italy, in the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze where he finished his BFA in 1982. Returning to Colombia the same year he founded “Trazo” an open studio in Bogotá; he worked and taught painting techniques there until 1987.

After 1988, he painted in his private studio in Colombia, until June 1999, the year he was kidnapped by the guerrilla group “FARC” in Colombia. Released in 2000, he traveled to the U.S. where he decided to migrate. After being granted with an “extraordinary ability” permanent residence visa, he relocated in the city of Key Biscayne, Florida, where he has been living and working for the last 22 years.

He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions since 1983, in Bogotá and Santa Marta, Colombia; New York and South Hampton, NY, Miami, Palm Beach, Vero Beach and Tallahassee, FL. Chicago, IL. Atlanta, GA. U.S. Quito; Lima; Buenos Aires; Rio de Janeiro; Montevideo; Caracas. Milan, Seravezza, Florence, and Rome. Barcelona, Madrid. Tokyo. Pretoria.

JORGE CAVELIER

Bosque de Península , 2021 Oil on linen 43 x 52 inches

JORGE CAVELIER

Luz de Frente , 2021 Oil on linen 19 3/4 x 31 1/2 inches

JORGE CAVELIER

Bosque Nube , 2021 Oil on gilded wood 15 3/4 x 20 inches

JORGE CAVELIER

Hora Límite , 2021 Oil on canvas 24 x 36 inches

JORGE CAVELIER

Morning River , 2021 Oil on canvas 24 x 36 inches

JORGE CAVELIER

Oro en Ascenso , 2021 Oil on gilded wood 20 x 20 inches

JORGE CAVELIER

Rio Lento , 2021 Oil on linen 29 x 86 inches

JORGE CAVELIER

Nieblas Rosadas , 2021 Oil on linen 26 x 60 inches

JORGE CAVELIER

Sol en la Niebla , 2022 Oil on linen 50 x 32 inches

GONZALO FUENMAYOR

Barranquilla, Colombia, b. 1977

Gonzalo Fuenmayor (Barranquilla, 1977) has questioned the ideas of what a Latin American artist should be. He makes drawings and installations which persistently deal with two major topics for him: cultural hybridity and transnational identity. Concerned about the effects of modernization and progress not only on natural environments but mostly on Latin American culture and its ways of being displayed internationally through stereotypes and common places. His aim seems to be not exclusively, to denounce banalization but also to understand its aesthetic mechanisms and cultural power.

In the last years, he produced large-scale charcoal drawings (of subjects such as palms, storms, royal interiors and furniture), by which he explores tropical symbols in a surreal contact with opulent and elegant imagery. His work triggers political and sensitive responses, as it stands firmly in the vernacular and artistic tradition of ornament, deeply rooted in the subcontinent. His black and white large-scale charcoal drawings are “an attempt to drain the cultural expectations of color while exploring transnational identities and cultural hybridity.”

Fuenmayor received an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 2004, and a BFA in fine arts and art education from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 2000, where he was awarded a full tuition scholarship from the Keith Haring Foundation. Fuenmayor has received numerous awards including The Ellies 2018 from Oolite Arts, a 2015 South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship for visual and media artists, Traveling Fellowship from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2014, first prize at the Sixth Bidimensional Salon at Gilberto Alzate Avendano Foundation in Bogota, Colombia, 2013, and a Silas Rhodes Family Award in 2000, among others. He was part of Oolite Arts’ studio residency program and has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows in the U.S., Latin America and Europe.

His work was showcased in The Florida Prize 2018 – Orlando Museum of Art; a solo exhibition “Tropical Mythologies” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2015; “Caribbean Crossroads” Exhibition at the Queens Museum, N.Y.; and solo shows at Miami’s Dot Fiftyone Gallery in 2018 and Dolby Chadwick Gallery in San Francisco in 2016, and Galeria El Museo, Bogota in 2020.

He currently lives and works in Miami. Fuenmayor’s artwork has been acquired for important public collections, such as the Museum of Modern Art in Bogotá, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Pérez Art Museum in Miami.

Courtesy of Dot FiftyOne Gallery

GONZALO FUENMAYOR

Mr. Tutti Frutti II , 2018 Charcoal on paper 30 x 22 1/2 inches

GONZALO FUENMAYOR

Mr. Tutti Frutti IV , 2018 Charcoal on paper 30 x 22 1/2 inches

GONZALO FUENMAYOR

Playground of Nonsense , 2021 Charcoal and spray paint on paper 60 x 75 1/2 inches

GONZALO FUENMAYOR

The Unexpected Guest , 2017 Giclee Print on Hot Press Bright paper 25 x 40 inches Edition of 150

FEDERICO URIBE

Bogotá, Colombia, b. 1962

Born in Bogotá, Colombia in 1962, Federico Uribe currently lives and works in Miami. His artwork resists classification, and emerges from intertwining everyday objects in surprising ways that maintain a formal reference to art history.

Uribe studied art at the University of Los Andes in Bogotá, and by 1988 he arrived in New York to pursue an MFA degree under the supervision of Luis Camnitzer. After receiving his degree, he left New York to study and work in Cuba, Mexico, Russia, England, and finally Miami.

In 1996, Uribe abandoned his paintbrushes and canvases in favor of household objects (plastic cutlery, colored pencils, and so on). He began to carefully observe, collect, juxtapose, and combine this alternative media. They have become unusual instruments of a new aesthetic, full of color, irony, and lively playfulness.

When observed closely, his works reveal various kinds of interpretations; they tempt us to touch them, to discover the detail and connection between one element and another. When viewed from further away, they offer volumes, forms, textures, and color. His creations elicit excitement and intrigue from all walks of life, and the novelty of the media often belies the compelling aesthetic merit of each work of art.

Uribe’s work has become prominent around the world over the past two decades and has been regularly shown at galleries and Museums in Europe, Asia, and widely across the United States. His works are in the public collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Montclair Art Museum, Vero Beach Museum, Bass Museum to name a few. Over the past decade, Uribe has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Montclair Art Museum, Mass MoCA, the Montgomery Museum of Art, Woodson Art Museum, The Hudson River Museum, Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens, The Brooks Museum, and has been featured in the 2019 Venice Biennale.

FEDERICO URIBE

Flowerscape , 2022 Colored pencil collage 60 x 85 inches

FEDERICO URIBE Puppy in Bed of Flowers , 2022 Colored pencil collage 31 x 23 x 8 inches

FEDERICO URIBE

Swimming Tiger , 2020-22 Colored pencil collage 72 x 72 x 8 inches

FEDERICO URIBE

Thinking Thinking Thinking , 2014-22 Colored pencil collage 69 x 48 x 5 inches