Thursday, March 5, 2015

Opening: None of That/Nada de eso, works by Juan Cruz
La Casita Cultural Center

La Casita Cultural Center
109 Otisco St., Syracuse

There will be an opening reception this evening 6:00-8:00 pm.

In his exhibition None of That (in Spanish, Nada de eso), Juan Cruz reflects on his discontent, on what he describes as a futile attempt to communicate something, constantly seeking and not finding a more far-reaching meaning in his work.

The creative process has led the artist to reexamine his body of work from decades of painting and cut it to pieces. Cruz has been slicing many of his signature pieces, large canvases full of color in motion, and recomposing them into new works that combine bits from past works. The notion of the artist destroying his own work may seem a like a sort of violent act, but for Juan it is more of a calculated, profoundly meditated process.

Cruz seems to be expressing what comes from a deeply felt stir that is shared by so many of us in our own lives at certain times, when we try to make sense, searching for the meaning of it all, and finding none of that.

Juan Alberto Cruz was born in Cataño, Puerto Rico in 1941. His work has been recognized and presented in museums and galleries locally and statewide, as well as in his native Puerto Rico.