Ray Martin Abeyta: When Worlds Collide
Born and raised in the Espa–ola Valley of northern New Mexico, Ray Abeyta now lives in New York, where he creates elaborate paintings in a Baroque, Latin American style infused with contemporary content. Despite the relocation, the talented artist has produced an intriguing--and educational--body of work drawing attention to his rich ancestral culture.
Such versatility and innovative prowess are abundantly evident in Cuentos y Encuentros: Paintings by Ray Martin Abeyta, which runs through June 6, 2004, at the Art Museum of the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
"At first glance, many of Abeyta's works appear to be Spanish colonial paintings dating from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. However, the artist incorporates present-day imagery with Spanish colonial and indigenous elements," exhibition curator Kristina Perea notes of the thirty paintings and one print on display.
"Using history as a springboard, Abeyta's paintings update and reinterpret traditional iconography, colors, and content in an almost magical manner," says Perea, adding that the works reveal the "continued relevance of older painting styles and symbolism in a Postmodern society."
Abeyta's fascination with cultural syncretism began with a visit in 1990 to the exhibition Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries, at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. When the artist saw what he describes as a "bizarre mutant variety of Aztec and Christian elements" in the massive stone crucifix on display, he decided to combine the two opposing themes in his work.
"The Baroque stylings of the European image arrived on the shores of the Americas in the sixteenth century and soon began its transformation into a colonial-mestizo variant," says Abeyta. "The outward appearance of the European source was utilized, while incorporating the subdued and even subversive translations of the indigenous and Creole artists trained to rework it in the studios and workshops of the Spanish colonies.
"It is at the point of introduction and divergence that I have begun an exploration of the convergence of two distinct cultures whose confrontational relationship continues to define the present moment," says Abeyta. He finds that the dualistic aspects of this relationship are more apt to be a "labyrinth of the dead ends of historical fact, where the paths of understanding lead into a tangle of myth and fiction.
"My vehicle for the exploration of this labyrinth is the very same mestizo-Baroque contrivance that gave form to the initial moment when the one (Euro-Spanish) was faced with the other (pre-Columbian indigenous). It is a moment that continues to resonate into the present. As such, I have sought to re-present it as an ongoing story, based as it is in imposition, translation, identity, dislocation, conflict, and transformation.
"Within its text lies the heart of memory--recuerdo--the story recalled," explains Abeyta. "It is my belief that in recalling this past, I can more fully understand this 'indefinite' present, in the hope of giving some definition to an uncertain future."
The artist is represented by Owings-Dewey Fine Art, 76 East San Francisco Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico. His Web site is www.rmartinabeyta.com.
----The Editor
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