PALOMA VIANEY: JUÁREZ LINDO Y QUERIDO
/PALOMA VIANEY: JUÁREZ LINDO Y QUERIDO
February 20 – April 6, 2024
Buchanan Partners Gallery @ Hylton Performing Arts Center
Manassas, VA
Curated by Jeffrey Kenney
About the Exhibition
Juárez Lindo y Querido showcases selections from artist Paloma Vianey’s Chamarra Series, paintings portraying her home city, Ciudad Juárez. Using painting as a practice of healing and care, this series explores the artist’s relationship to the vulnerable but resilient city situated on the Mexico border.
Vianey’s process begins with photographing the city. In gathering images and impressions, she searches for vernacular and often overlooked buildings that have witnessed both violence or evoke a sense of the community, including colorful old houses, neighborhood tortillerías, local businesses, and other structures. Vianey then uses the photographs as models for her paintings, attempting to depict the urban landscape with honesty and hope.
Each scene is painted on canvas overlaid by a chamarra (the Mexican word for jacket) which provides a vivid layer of color and a metaphorical layer or care. Moreover, the painted chamarra imply a body, literally making the places personal. They poetically embody empathy, suggesting the way we are forever imprinted by our surroundings while demanding that viewers hold space in their hearts for the victims of the city's incessant violence.
About the Artist
Paloma Vianey is an interdisciplinary artist from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico who currently lives and works in Washington D.C. Her work explores the vulnerabilities and violence of her community and narrates her experience crossing the U.S.-Mexico border daily, questioning the political corruption inherent in this division. She earned a BA in Art History from The University of Texas at El Paso and an MFA from Cornell University. She has been a recipient of three Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grants (2023, 2021, and 2020), a grant from the National Fund of the Arts in Mexico (2020), a scholarship from the Institute of Mexicans in the Exterior, and the John Hartell Graduate Award.
Paloma was an Artist-in-Residence at The Antonio Gala Foundation in Cordova, Spain, and a Mellon Collaborative Studies Fellow. She was selected as CARD fellow by the Phillips Collection in 2023 and was selected to participate in the 2024 Border Biennial. She has exhibited her work at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum, the Antonio Gala Foundation, Amos Eno Gallery, Jack Hanley Gallery, the Mexican Consulate at El Paso Texas, El Paso Museum of Art, The Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts, and the Archeology and History Museum of El Chamizal. Vianey currently teaches as an Adjunct Faculty at GMU School of Art.