Ringling Underground and Artist Liaison, Ender Wilde, present a group pop-up exhibition held in the John and Mable Ringling Museum Historic Courtyard on February 7, 2019
CULTURED
ANDREA ODED AND ALFREDO GARCIA
CULTURED, a Ringling Museum Courtyard exhibition of Andrea Oded and Alfredo Garcia. Cultured exhibits new works by artists who engage heritage, history and the migrant experience. Oded and Garcia explore notions of culture through pattern and symbolism. Oded constructs large-scale lanterns with cut patterns alluding to his diverse heritage. Garcia illustrates personal relationships and biblical stories in symbolic paintings from from intimate to immediate in scale.
Andrea Oded creates work inspired by an anthropological fascination of today’s society and the history leading up to it. Having grown up between Italy, Guatemala, Israel, and Florida, four vastly different cultures, he creates intricate metal sculptures that explore history, religion, family, cultural identity, psychology, and politics. Each work is inspired by the art, iconography and mythology from these different cultures and their history; Greco Roman, Mesoamerican, Middle Eastern, and modern day western influences.
Oded, a recent graduate of Ringling College of Art and Design, focuses on pattern and form to illustrate his personal response to these histories. Each cut shape in the large sphere is organically developed as the artist recollects on the identifiable symbolism, iconography and architecture of his own sacred spaces. The internal light casts vibrant shadows, playing on the environment and architecture which makes each work site specific and reactionary. Overwhelmed by the scale and the finality of the cut metal, Oded hopes to inspire interest in understanding humanity’s vast culture and history. www.andreadoded.com
Alfredo Garcia grew up in Guerrero, Mexico, as one of eight children. His parents worked the fields in Mexico and had no formal education. Garcia enjoyed his public education and even spent time working as a teacher in the hills outside of Mexico City, often walking seven hours to reach his students. Garcia first studied philosophy at the University of Mexico City before beginning 10 months of art studies at the International Institute of Art. Combining philosophy and art Garcia found himself wanting “to find answers for things [...] I was curious. I realized it is very difficult to know things.” At the time he found his favorite philosophers were Schopenhauer and Plato. Then, Garcia began studying the pre-Raphaelite artists and “the 19th century artists opened a new door to beauty”.
Currently, Garcia creates sculptures, totems and oil paintings on wood by combining biblical, familial and Mexican mythologies. His work overlaps craft and fine art, it focuses on the story - in whichever media that is told. Large-scale family portraits open up a conversation of identity and acceptance.
As owner of Arte Coyoacono gallery in the Bradenton Village of the Arts, Garcia regularly opens his studio doors to the public for art walks. www.facebook.com/alfredogarcia