Urra & Gamboa Art Opening @ Artist Talk Sat. Nov. 24 @ 6.00 pm

For Immediate Release

Gabriela Gamboa ( Venezuela )

Expressiones Cutural Center Invited Artist

&

Ulises  Urra Hernández

 ( Cuba )

I-Park Foundation / Expressiones Cutural Center Artist in Residence

Art Opening Reception & Artist Talk:

 Saturday,

 November 24th.  6.00-8.00 P.M.

Once again Expressiones Cultural Center is bridging the cultural understanding between Latin America and the United States by featuring the work of two visual artists: Gabriela Gamboa, currently living and working in Caracas, Venezuela and Ulises Urra, a Cuban artist working on his doctorate in Art in Brussels, Belgium.

Ulises  Urra Hernández will show a series of paper, photograph and mixed media compositions. That series, still work in progress, will be  the result of a personal dialogue with both the landscape and the social and natural environment  of the Connecticut area. This project has been made possible by  the kind support of the I-Park Foundation which has given the artist the opportunity to work in an area that possesses majestic beauty and esxciting-romantic stories in its cultural heritage,

Ulises was born in Havana, Cuba. He received his MFA in Painting from the Superior Institute of Art in Havana. He has worked as a teacher in art schools and as an independent artist. He has exhibited in the  Havana Biennal and international artistic projects: 9th Havana Biennial, 10th Havana Biennial, Cuba XXI Century. Also he participated in the Avant Writing Symposium, Ohio State University, Identification. Musee d' Art Contemporain, ULB, Brussels, Belgium. Ici et Maintenant. Contemporary Art Tour & Taxis, Brussels, Belgium. An artist in the broader sense of the word,  he combines different media in his work through middle and large scale installations. He lives between Havana, Cuba and Brussels, Belgium.   At the Vrije Universiteit van Brussel  he is doing PhD research on avant-garde collage and its impact in our contemporary world.

Gabriela Gambo shows a body of photographs based on her own experimentation in performance, video, multimedia installations with photography primarily, but not exclusively. Her work opens new paths of research on the various forms of perception that are at the center of her current work. She tries to answer questions such as how the world is perceived by the visually impaired, how does that notion alter our concept of beauty or a masterpiece,  that in the present world of excessive stimulation by images and sounds how we empower and include those who cannot see or hear,  and what can we learn from acquiring the world through this perception.

“Perhaps as Umberto Eco says, I do this because I believe it is my political duty. Gabriela Gamboa”

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Gabriela has lived in Venezuela since childhood, where she studied Graphic Design at Instituto Neuman in Caracas and then obtained her Bachelor of Art in Art and Design at the University of Chicago, in 1981. After that she studied with photographers such as Ricardo Armas and Luis Gonzalez Palma. Her main interest being the body as a point of origin of art, she began working in video and performance  in 1986. At the same time she began her work in films and music, looking to integrate all these expressions into the creative process.

Between 1992 and 1998 she taught video art at Escuela Superior de Arte Armando Reverón de Caracas, a course she helped créate and develop. Her work has centered around the body and the way we communicate, including the use of alternative non verbal communication. Eventually she developed a language of her own to accompany one of her videos. Her first solo show, titled “Silentium” was at the Alliance Francaise in Venezuela in 1995 and her latest, “Soundingboard,” at Galeria 39, Caracas was in August 2010. This same exhibit traveled to Expressions Gallery in New London, Connecticut. In 2002 she won the Juan Lovera Prize at the Salon Arturo Michelena for the video installation “Written on the Wall.”  She is represented in both private and public collections in Venezuela and abroad, but most of her work belongs to the ephemeral, non objectual sphere of art, such as performance and multimedia installations.

Exhibit and cocktail opening art reception free and open to the public