Fuego & Blues
Directed by:
Glorisabel Santos
Genre / Type of Show:
Visual Arts
Language:
English
Duration:
04:00:00
Audience type:
General audience
Artists/Features:
Marcus McFerren
By formal training, McFerren, MD, PhD, is a physician and scientist who practices dermatology in New Haven, Connecticut. By avocation he is a self-taught photographer and painter who uses charcoal, pastel and acrylic to construct emotionally dynamic mixed media portraits evocative of the Blues as a visual art form. Through Black American subject material, he aims to produce personal accounts of hard times, difficult circumstances and historical narratives that represent the unvarnished, gut-bucket actuality of everyday experience. Marcus’ photographs are included in the Hartford Healthcare permanent collections.
Jean “Baco” Ortiz is a visual artist, muralist and educator. He obtained a B.A. in Fine Arts from the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico (PUCPR), Ponce Campus. In 2017, he held his first solo exhibition titled “(G)entes” at the Trinitaria Gallery in Ponce. Ortiz’s oil paintings incorporate glazes, a technique that reveals other traditions not historically associated with fine art. By doing so, he blurs the boundaries between fine arts and popular arts, asserting that a people’s true history lies beneath the official narratives of the privileged classes.
Synopsis:
“Fuego & Blues” brings together painters with a high regard for the craft who deftly re-imagine history by imaginatively recombining “official” written narratives and oral traditions.
Following his color sensibility has led Marcus McFerren to a renewed appreciation for the Blues and its musicians. McFarren presents a series of fictitious portraits referencing multiple aspects of daily life evoking untold narratives from the African American experience.
Jean “Baco” Ortiz’s paintings highlight his provenance from Ponce, Puerto Rico’s Southern “pearl”. Baco’s hometown appears reconfigured as a former sugarcane plantation consumed by a conflagration from which esoteric figures emerge.
With works rooted in their lives in the United States (McFerren) and in Puerto Rico (Baco), both artists intertwine Afro-descendant realities and suppressed narratives that endure thanks to a collective memories enshrined in the vibrant arts and culture of African Americans and Afro-Puerto Ricans.
About the Company:
Marcus McFerren
By formal training, McFerren, MD, PhD, is a physician and scientist who practices dermatology in New Haven, Connecticut. By avocation he is a self-taught photographer and painter who uses charcoal, pastel and acrylic to construct emotionally dynamic mixed media portraits evocative of the Blues as a visual art form. Through Black American subject material, he aims to produce personal accounts of hard times, difficult circumstances and historical narratives that represent the unvarnished, gut-bucket actuality of everyday experience. Marcus’ photographs are included in the Hartford Healthcare permanent collections.
Jean “Baco” Ortiz is a visual artist, muralist and educator. He obtained a B.A. in Fine Arts from the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico (PUCPR), Ponce Campus. In 2017, he held his first solo exhibition titled “(G)entes” at the Trinitaria Gallery in Ponce. Ortiz’s oil paintings incorporate glazes, a technique that reveals other traditions not historically associated with fine art. By doing so, he blurs the boundaries between fine arts and popular arts, asserting that a people’s true history lies beneath the official narratives of the privileged classes.
Regarding the director
Glorisabel Santos Santos (Ponce, PR, 1994) Glorisabel Santos is an independent historian, curator and cultural manager who studied Art History at the University of Puerto Rico, and completed a B.A. in History at the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico. While completing her B.A., Santos worked as an assistant to Dr. Teresa Tió, art historian and specialist in Puerto Rican printmaking. In her Cultural Management practice, Santos collaborates with
community and cultural organizations such as Los Hijos de Bélgica, Inc. and the Comité Pro Nuestra Cultura, Inc. Her curatorial projects include exhibitions such as “El Bacanal” (2021), “EN/FUERA Colectiva Fem” (2022), “Afro Sur” (2023), and a the series of three exhibitions by master printmaker, José R. Alicea (2024). Based in Ponce, Santos’ work currently focuses in producing cultural projects to promote Afro-descendant artists from the southern region of Puerto Rico, while pursuing an M.A. in Cultural Management at the University of Puerto Rico.
Date:
February 4, 2025