Uonderland at Yellow Peril Gallery

raquel-paiewonsky-sugar
“Uonderland”: Raquel Paiewonsky
25 June-6 August 2016

“Uonderland” by Raquel Paiewonsky features new work exploring landscape, architecture and social metaphor. In 2015, Paiewonsky was artist-in-residence at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, supported by The Davidoff Art Initiative. Inspired by her time in Germany’s capital and cultural center, this vibrant series made its debut at VOLTA New York 2016 during Armory Arts Week in March.

Raquel Paiewonsky (b. 1969, Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic) works across a range of media, including painting, sculpture, installation and photography. She has presented at 15 solo exhibitions in the Dominican Republic and the United States, as well as group shows in the United States, France, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Cuba, Ecuador, among others. Paiewonsky has also presented work at the 53rd and 55th Venice Biennale in the Latin American Pavilion.

“The predominantly feminine social body in Raquel Paiewonsky’s work addresses issues of gender politics, couple relationships, sexuality, maternity, ecology and other issues of a general nature, but it also alludes to hot-button issues in the Dominican context, such as prostitution,” notes Gerardo Mosquera, Chief Curator of the San Juan Poly/Graphic Triennial. “The artist uses the body as a kind of tropological platform from which to illuminate these issues in their own complexity and in the imaginal complexity of art, without falling into the prevailing literalness of socially critical art in her country. We are mistaken if we think that her artworks are about the body or sexuality. They are so only indirectly, because here the body is above all else a critical resource that drives the artist’s expression with great power.”

Although seldom conveying violence explicitly, Paiewonsky’s work is very much concerned with the veiled but insidious violence that permeates the personal, social and political systems in which we live. “I am particularly interested in object/subject interventions, often utilizing fabric or collage as a means of taking over a particular space, body or artifact,” she stresses. “In recent years, my work explores the relationship between our essence and our surroundings, the impact of stereotypes and cultural constructions, always taking as a reference our instinctual selves and the ways in which the primal component of our nature is affected by the new and ever changing contexts of contemporary life.”

The opening reception for “Uonderland” is Saturday, 25 June, 6-9PM

(text adapted from the gallery’s press materials)


INFORMATION

Yellow Peril Gallery
Suite 5
60 Valley Street
Providence, Rhode Island 02909 USA
(401) 861-1535

Hours:
Saturday-Sunday, Noon-5PM
other times by appointment

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Image:
Sugar
by Raquel Paiewonsky
24″x32″
mixed media collage on landscape papinting
2016
Image courtesy of the artist and Yellow Peril Gallery, Providence