Opening Reception

ARCO PROFUNDO

6 November - 20 December

Curated and featuring works by Flora Artist-in-Residence Geovanni Barrios, and special guests Veronica Bello and Cici Osias.

Taking inspiration from NASA’s Hubble Deep Field—a series of images revealing thousands of distant galaxies and offering new perspectives on the formation and scale of the universe—ARCO PROFUNDO considers how human-scale history might be measured. The culmination of Geovanni Barrios’ residency at Flora, this group exhibition brings together three artists whose practices explore and seek to remedy personal and inherited disconnections from place and family.

Looking at Earth as the “pale blue dot,” Barrios considers how advances in geospatial technologies have transformed—and, in many ways, diminished—our human-scale relationship with the planet. Through his latest works on paper and wood, Barrios reflects on his own disconnection from nature. Inspired by his family's Maya roots in Guatemala, Barrios employs billowing, abstract forms on paper to make sense of his place within the larger 'American' landscape.

Through woven works by Veronica Bello, this inquiry extends into the ways family narratives unfold across the expanse of the planet. Bello's calado technique—unweaving and reweaving—from her family's home in the Canary Islands, shows us how relationships with loved ones can be sustained across geographic, cultural, and generational distances. Her works attempt to shorten the distances between her family across Spain, Venezuela, and the United States.

Cici Osias brings us home, turning the exhibition’s expansive questions back toward the intimate and familiar. Rooted in traditional Congolese dye techniques, Osias’ latest works use cassava-root resists and natural dyes, drawing materials and processes from the world around us. Employing traditional West African and diasporic iconographies, her participatory practice further emphasizes the importance of making as a communal act, reminding us that our relationship to place is also built through the people with whom we share it.

ARCO PROFUNDO is made possible by The Residency at Flora.