Tearing Silk
Silkscreens by Miguel Trelles

New Haven Free Public Library Gallery
133 Elm Street (Lower Level) New Haven, CT

Artist Reception: Saturday, June 16, 2011, 2:00 - 4:00 PM

Exhibition: June 9 -August 8, 2011

Miguel Trelles has a studio presence in Manhattan's Lower East Side. His on-going Chino-Latino painting series addresses Caribbean and Latino subjects through Chinese references. He is also an adjunct professor of Visual Arts at Hunter College, and of Spanish at Southern Connecticut State University. His exhibitions have been reviewed in art publications such as "Arte al Dia", "Art in America", "Art Nexus," and "YISHU: Journal of Contemporary Art." His work has been exhibited extensively in New York, New Haven, and San Juan. His paintings have traveled to Miami, Havana, Santo Domingo, Tegucigalpa, Lima, Rio de Janeiro, Beunos Aires, and Paris.

"Rather than merely pursuing radical innovations, I favor revolutionary archaism in painting," writes Miguel, "Personally meaningful references and amenable formats from the history of art help me to depict and to frame those intuitions about nature and humanity which I have been rendering with crayon, ink and brush since infancy. Those references are then “telescoped” into new conceptual contexts and combinations, but always within the purview of traditional painting/printmaking methods.

"Tearing Silk" consciously straddles “the tremendous potential energy of difference” Europe unknowingly and willfully instilled between the four Americas. These silkscreens reflect a respectful and well-informed appropriation of Meso-American icons, Afro-Caribbean literary sources, and American Pop. They constitute yet another rough draft towards a Pan-American suma, a model that will not deny Europe but which will encompass more.