Ogden
Nov. 3, 2023 – Jan. 14, 2024
Opening reception, Friday, Nov. 3, 6-9 pm
Nancy Rivera is a Salt Lake City-based artist working in photography, fiber and sculpture, creating pieces influenced by her dual cultural identity as Mexican-American. Her subject matter ranges from personal family memories to subversions of government-issued documents, while central themes in her work include code-switching, cultural assimilation and displacement.
For No Present to Remember, Rivera presents a series of soft sculptures that merge the tangible with the metaphorical while also connecting her roots in Mexico with her life in the US. To create the pieces in this series, Rivera prints family photographs on fabric and submerges them in water from the Great Salt Lake or Bonneville Salt Flats. The cloth absorbs the salt as it slowly dries, desaturating the image and creating a malleable yet organic shape.
According to the artist, the sculptures can be seen as a metaphor for the flexibility and resilience required in navigating complex memories that fade and shift. While the images themselves appear as moments frozen in time, their process of transformation speak to the fluidity and adaptability of identity. “This series of work is not only an exploration of physical materials,” says the artist, “but is a journey through the landscape of memory where the interwoven threads of past and present create a tapestry of identity.”
Ogden Contemporary Arts 455 25th Street, Ogden UT www.ogdencontemporaryarts.org
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Categories: Exhibitions | Exhibitions To the North
