May 20 - August 20, 2023
From IMAS:
“The International Museum of Art & Science is pleased to present the virtual exhibition, Processing, featuring watercolor paintings by Austin-based artist, Christopher Miñán Fitzgerald, supported by Texas Commission on the Arts and South Texas Health System.
In Processing, the artist invites us into painting as a strategy to process the pain of those suffering around us and the loss felt when they are gone. For over a decade, Miñán Fitzgerald has painted portraits of ICU patients quarantined from the public. When emergency facilities and hospitals became restricted to visitors during the pandemic, he enlisted a network of assistants including surgeons and nurses caring for those suffering. From this ongoing experience, he translates intimate watercolors into large-scale portrayals examining near-death encounters as an interpretive framework for how we derive meaning from our communities and histories.
The emotional resonance of the paintings is amplified through the scale of the canvases, often spanning eight feet wide to ten feet tall. This effect is further heightened by the intrinsic precariousness of watercolor, evoking a sense of unbridled vulnerability. The outcome is a degree of abstraction that necessitates significant distance from the artwork before the viewer can discern the severity and tragedy of the subject matter, both aesthetically and affectively.
Christopher Miñán Fitzgerald received his MFA in 2012 from Penn State School of Visual Arts in State College, Pennsylvania, following residencies at Yale University Summer School of Art and Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, Italy. His paintings are featured in the New American Paintings publication and the White Columns Artist Registry. This virtual exhibition was created by L. Jardín (McAllen), a design and strategy studio, with Arts Respond grant funding from the Texas Commission on the Arts and additional support from South Texas Health System. To view the virtual exhibition, visit www.theimasonline.org/processing.”
International Museum of Art and Science - IMAS
1900 Nolana Loop
McAllen, 78504 TX
(956) 682-1564
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