SAN ANTONIO, TX.- Ruiz-Healy Art is presenting Plurality of Isolations featuring works by RF Alvarez, Jesse Amado, Jennifer Ling Datchuk, Jenelle Esparza, Barbara Miñarro, Cecilia Paredes, Ethel Shipton, and Carlos Rosales-Silva.
Plurality of Isolations opened on Wednesday, February 24th, and will be on view until April 24th, 2021.
The exhibition touches on the experiences shared by many during the COVID-19 pandemic, political distress, and fragile economic environment. The exhibition is an assemblage of the meditations of these artists who share common themes—separation, upheaval, unrest, and hope for better days to come. These periods of hardship indelibly cast a mark on art and shape the course of art history. Though the COVID-19 crisis has had a severe emotional and economic impact on the artistic community, artists are regrouping and reinventing themselves for this new normal as they have done in past catastrophes and have helped those most afflicted find solace through their work.
"During COVID-19 we’ve all learned to live with less. Less contact, less connection, many people with less food, less money, and sadly many with less family and friends in their lives...I am optimistic that the world can change for the better, I keep thinking that Life is never what you can see." - Ethel Shipton
"I have, over the course of this pandemic, felt an emptying out. Streets emptied, calendars emptied, but so did these allegories I painted. They felt so distant, so intangible, that it almost made no sense to continue painting them. Confronting the world with what it is becomes more important than showing what it is not." - RF Alvarez
"Aristotle told us the function of art is catharsis. When experiencing art you laugh, you cry. You feel pity, fear. You see other’s lives as a reflection of your own. Consequentially the catharsis comes. A cleansing clarity, a feeling of relief and understanding that you carry away with you. Art is an instrument that addresses one’s psychic and social health. Presently, the world requires a catharsis." -Jesse Amado
