Dates:
May 22 - September 26, 2010
Opening Reception:
Friday, May 21 from 6 – 8 p.m.
Location:
The Morris Gallery, Historic Landmark Building, 118 North Broad Street
Description:
Pérez-Méndez is a multi-media and performance artist whose work examines the fragile nature of history and identity through the lens of her own experience as a Puerto Rican woman. Este Es Mi Pais is an installation that combines paintings from the collection of PAFA with Pepper’s Ghost holograms*, video images, and ready-made material. In an installation where illusion and reality overlap, it addresses the ambiguities of historical representation and draws into question the certainty of vision itself. Pérez-Méndez captivates her audience through the imaginative juxtaposition of old and new, still and moving images, techniques that allow her to unveil the ambiguity of history and question received perceptions of who we are.
Pérez-Méndez received her MFA from the Tyler School of Art and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She was a finalist for both the Joan Mitchell Award and the Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 2006. Currently, she is an artist/member of the collective Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia and an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Morris Gallery exhibitions are free and open to the public during normal operating hours.
Curator:
Julien Robson, Curator of Contemporary Art
* Pepper's Ghost is an illusionary technique used in theater and in some magic tricks. Using a plate glass and special lighting techniques, it can make objects seem to appear or disappear, or make one object seem to "morph" into another. Professor John Henry Pepper invented Pepper's Ghost with English engineer Henry Dircks and it was introduced into theaters in the 1860’s.
Sponsors:
Leading support for this exhibition is provided by the William Penn Foundation.
