Month: April 2022

In 1961, Cuban artist Ana Mendieta (1948-1985) was forcibly relocated to the United States due to the uncertainty caused by Fidel Castro’s rise to power in her home nation. This began Mendieta’s life of exile. Focusing on the photographic series Silueta Works in Mexico (1973-1977), artist and scholar Genevieve Hyacinthe posits Mendieta as a “New World Artist” whose interests in the figure of the Black Venus, and other Black Atlantic forms metaphorically buoyed her to re-shape her experience of exile from a narrative of intractable trauma to artistic agency.

In this essay, Jerry Philogene discusses Guadeloupe-based, multi-disciplinary artist Ronald Cyrille’s paintings and drawings within a framework that interrogates Cyrille’s interplay between Creole folklore, language, and childhood memories.

Based on research, an interview with the artist, and biographical information, this text presents a reading of Daniel Lind Ramos’s work in relationship to the historic events of the 1797 British invasion of Puerto Rico. The article highlights the importance of history, memory, syncretic practices, and Afro-Caribbean identity in Lind Ramos’s growing body of work which draws from the material economies of his home city of Loíza.