Marisol Colón: Puerto Rican Roots, Natural Minimalism & Global Art Exhibits

Artist Marisol Colón's natural minimalism sculptures, inspired by her Puerto Rican childhood and geology, feature unique materials. Her work explores time and landscape, showcased in two major solo exhibits: Glowing Earth and The Mountain, The Monolith.

That idea traces back to her childhood in Puerto Rico, where she matured between San Juan and Bayamón. Her daddy was a chemist; her mommy, that educated her to deal with color early on. She keeps in mind peeling off bark from eucalyptus trees on her grandfather’s farm, seeing layers disclose themselves and then heal.

You can see that concept in the job. The monoliths feel formed over time as opposed to made at one time. The shells suggest something growing, gradually and constantly. Even her latest paintings, made with meteorite dirt and volcanic product, press that idea additionally, integrating materials from different areas into a single surface area.

Early Influences & Artistic Vision

At the Bruce, that thinking takes form in two bodies of job. Colón often chats concerning her work in terms of time. When she talks concerning the job, it’s as if they are a physical extension of her body.

“It’s a wonderful experience when you’re in front of them,” claimed Margarita Karasoulas, a curator at the Bruce that first came across Colón’s work in 2014 at Efrain López’s Tribeca gallery and assisted bring the event to the gallery. “They move with the light … every person stops in their tracks.”

The sculptures might look industrial, but they are not. Each item is cast and layered by hand, with pigments tied to particular places. At the Bruce, several pillars reference Puerto Rican websites– river systems, caverns, seaside developments– while the stones arranged around them come from the California desert near Colón’s workshop, creating a tiny landscape inside the gallery.

In her job, those early experiences appear in the products themselves. Pigments recommendation particular landscapes. Forms resemble mountains, rivers, and caverns. Individual history is folded up right into the physical structure of the items.

“You recognize that Puerto Rico, the actual island, is made of the remains of a sunken volcano that emerged millions of years back,” she said. “It’s a lovely allegory because, in some cases I feel like we’re all concerning to appear you know? People simply see simply a little bit, only what’s on the surface, however underneath there has actually constantly been hill of power.”

Showcasing Art: Major Solo Exhibitions

Now, almost four years later, Colón is the topic of two institutional solo exhibits: “Glowing Earth” at the Bruce Gallery and “The Mountain, The Monolith” at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, a twin discussion that functions as both a career turning point and a homecoming. Represented by Puerto Rico– based dealership Walter Otero, Colón has, over the past decade, constructed an international account with installments ranging from Desert X AlUla to sites near the Pyramids of Giza, while positioning work in collections consisting of the Los Angeles Area Gallery of Art, Pérez Art Gallery Miami, and El Museo del Barrio.

“What you’re seeing is only feasible as a result of exactly how she’s utilizing these materials,” stated Danielle O’Steen, the exhibition’s co-curator, pointing to Colón’s use plastics and engineered pigments to create those surfaces that shift as customers move around them.

At the Bruce, that believing takes shape in two bodies of work. Initially there are wall-mounted “coverings” that reviewed as biomorphic, virtually cellular types, somewhere between style things and living organism. The monoliths, taller and more ascetic, modification shade as all-natural light actions via the gallery.

Career Path & Return to Art

She left San Juan in 1987 on a Truman scholarship, built an occupation in environmental regulation in California, and invested her thirties and twenties elevating two children. Making art, which she gained from her mother, a painter, continued to be secondary. It wasn’t until her kids left for university that she went back to it completely. “That was my time,” she stated.

Karasoulas had actually been thinking of how to trigger the gallery’s recently expanded, light-filled sculpture gallery, an area that sits at the junction of art and scientific research. Colón’s work, which includes aerospace-grade materials and collaborates with clinical processes, fit naturally right into that framework.

Her job sits in loosened discussion with Room, light and minimalism, and Land Art, though she chooses her very own term: “natural minimalism,” a means of explaining sculptures that concentrate much less on type than on product; what it’s constructed from and where it comes from.

Deepening Connections: Art & Heritage

In her job, those early experiences show up in the materials themselves. At the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, the job is put back into the surface that formed it, from the El Yunque rain forest to the caves of Camuy, where mineral developments developed over millions of years look like the kinds her sculptures take.

Colón commonly speaks about her work in regards to time. The skins associate with the body and assumption. The pillars point to longer ranges, geological or perhaps spiritual. It’s as if they are a physical extension of her body when she talks concerning the work.

Her identical exhibit in San Juan makes that link explicit. At the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, the work is put back right into the surface that formed it, from the El Yunque jungle to the caves of Camuy, where mineral developments developed over numerous years look like the forms her sculptures take. It is, by her own summary, a full-circle minute.

“I researched regulation since I thought it would certainly shield me,” she told ARTnews, reviewing a youth in Puerto Rico formed as much by instability as it was by the ranch in the borders of Bayamón where she grew up.

At the same time, Puerto Rico itself is freshly visible in the more comprehensive cultural discussion, driven in component by numbers like Negative Bunny. Colón welcomes that focus however resists the idea that it marks a start.