"Los sueños que me trajo el rio"
(Dreams the river brought me)
Reflections:
Have you ever stopped to look at the river or the waterway that runs near where you live or work?
The river spoke to me, inspired me.
It told me about all the life it carries, how it flows, changes, grows, and renews itself.
How it brings joy, how it provides for people, how it is useful and how it gets angry when things go wrong. How it fills with garbage, plastic and pollution. How it is dammed, drained, dried up.
It told me: take care of me, use me, let me run, enjoy me, don't mistreat me, dream with me ...dream for a better tomorrow.
The river to me is a symbol of life and its many complexities : flowing, moving and ever changing. It nurtures us with gifts, sometimes good, sometimes bad. The river carves the fluvial path, much like we carve our way through life, unprecedented of the next winding turn.
These are the dreams that accompany me on the journey through life.
"Dreams that the river brought me"
is an exhibition that evokes a deep reflection on memory and identity through the art of America Olivo.
The river, as a powerful symbol of temporal flow and everflowing memories, America makes us think about the reality of our major waterways, which we now find filled with waste.
Sample of a life of excess, consumerism, of accumulations of material objects, which in the end ends up in the rivers and then in the sea. The way in which the artist transmits it to us from the playful and poetic, loaded with vibration and colors, figures in movement, which, through the pleasant, allows us to consider, about what we are leaving to the next generations, that to the time they show evidence of different "intertwined histories".
The exhibition consists of twenty works, both two-dimensionl and three-dimensional, with a high aesthetic level and with a critical discourse, using different techniques, covering; painting, engraving, collage, ceramics, fabrics, and installation distributed in four main bodies. Which begins with the first sketches and drawings, which gave rise to the series " El Dije, historias entrelazadas" and "Suenos que me trajo el rio" where she combines collage and integration of new diverse materials.
Throughout the tour we can see the versatility and restlessness of the artist, which is reflected in her constant search and experimentation, which builds imaginary worlds, around the memory that we see in each of the pieces, full of details, that they require attention, for their identification and seeing how they intertwine with each other, through different elements, both in form and materials.
Josefina Pichardo Casasnovas
MAV
Guest curator
The composition depicts large scale floral interpretations, inspired by the resilliance of the endemic plants of The Dominican Republic. Specifically, The Flor de Bayahibe, Flor del árbol de Copey, Flor de las Mirabal and Palma de Cana which together embellish the island’s terrain.
The plants grow from a grassland recreated by plastic bags molded into shape by joining woven and ironed plastic bags and resin, all together sewn on canvas fabrics. The plant's resilience is portrayed through the installation's elevated appeal, by hanging them as accessories, showing their survival in a world burdened by overconsumption.
2024
"Flow with the flow of the river"
Composition of 5 strips woven with plastic bags, painted canvas, ribbons, and electrical wires measuring 17"x82" each, placed simulating a curtain.
The union of each strip recreates a design of the openwork of caribbean arquitecture. The separation of the strips creates a passage where you can cross between the strips and imagine you are a floating log, carried by the currents through the river or a sea creature trying to survive the plastic.
3.0 x 3.0 x 3.0 m
2024
