The Moss Arts Center’s current exhibition offerings traverse the culture of place with fresh approaches to traditional landscape paintings. Now on view, the summer exhibitions feature “Legacy of Place,” a solo show by Lilian Garcia-Roig examining her personal connections to land and place, and “MaterPolis,” a 10-person show exploring what it means to live in a city.
The exhibitions are currently on display in the galleries of the Moss Arts Center, located at 190 Alumni Mall. The galleries and all related events are free and open to the public.
Lilian Garcia-Roig; “Legacy of Place”; Ruth C. Horton Gallery
Garcia-Roig’s landscape paintings examine ideas of place, belonging, and identity. Drawing from the perceptual to conceptual experiences of landscape, Garcia-Roig’s works use the materiality and process of paint to explore her own connections to land and place. Her on-site works, painted over the course of an entire day, are immersive expressions of bodily movement, fleeting moments of time, and the illusionistic and abstracting possibilities of painting.
“Legacy of Place” features work from four of the artist’s series, including “Plein-Aired Histories,” “Fluid Perception: Banyan as Metaphor,” “Hyphenated Nature,” and “Hecho con Cuba.”
Born in Havana, Cuba; raised in Texas; and presently living in Tallahassee, Fla., Garcia-Roig’s practice links her Cuban and American identities. In the included four series, she speaks to the differences in the experience of place — the closeness of the American South versus the forced distance of the Cuban landscape. Referencing histories of painting, representations of land, and legacies of place, the works express the complexity of her hyphenated identity.
