Exhibit: July 6 – August 6, 2021
Artist: Hector Acuna
This body of work contains paintings made before and after the Covid19 outbreak. The paintings are not necessarily about the virus, but some of them were inspired by changes the virus brought to my life. In March of 2020, I was finalizing and installing my thesis exhibition for the completion of my Master of Fine Arts candidacy at Michigan State University. Cultural Crisis and Ope I Think I’m Leakin are of the paintings made in the first months of 2020 for the MFA show. These paintings, like most of my work, stem from personal experiences and relationships between the figure and ground. For the past few years, I’ve been exploring what it looks like for a subject to belong to a place.
Following the anticlimactic shift of my final semester, I began new paintings with figures that bend, morph, and fragment within invented spaces. Contrasts in my palette continued to expand in saturation and temperature with subtle moments of impasto teasing the smooth paintings into the viewers’ space. In many of the illusionistic compositions, you’ll find possibilities for narratives to unravel. However, I encourage all of us to question the logic of the associations we find in each image. Should the symbols surrounding each figure align to a linear meaning? Or should we accept the notion that associations are random or brought forth from the viewer? I’m occupied by these questions as I push the form and familiarity of the figures in my work. Given the climate of our world, I wonder how a comfortable and homogenous logic is possible when our experiences are more diverse than ever.
Hector Acuna is a 2020 MFA graduate from Michigan State University originally from Kenosha, Wisconsin. Hector began his academic career at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point where he earned his BFA in 2015. Hector has had small group and solo exhibitions at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Scarabocchio Art Museum, Saugatuck Center for the Arts, Kresge Art Center, Re:Vision Gallery, and Noel Fine Arts Center. His work has also been included in exhibitions at Site:Brooklyn Gallery, Baton Rouge Gallery, 440 Gallery, Lansing Art Gallery, and Wheaton College. Hector has been awarded the Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2D BFA Arts Bash Scholarship, James R. Hill Award, COFAC Dedication Scholarship, and the Hipstamatic Entrepreneurship Award. Hector recently moved to Cedarburg, WI with his fiancée and their guinea pig. To view more of his art visit his website at acunaarts.com or on social media @acuna.art