Transitions in Time | English Version Spanish Version Time changes, minute by minute… In each painting there is no repeatable traces in a certain year, transiting on the long journey of emotions. Yesterday was present and today is past. The infinite creativity is riding the horse of time, footprints embodied in unrepeatable symbols and colors, forming part of the great human collection and traversing, with my deep and ethereal message, the soul of the beholder. Olmedo Quimbita "I always say that I can tell his painting apart... He has cultivated and refined his own style during a long and permanent career in so many exhibitions, in the most unusual places in the world. Using a palette of very clear color tones and a summarized drawing, Olmedo Quimbita stopped painting the Andean world a long time ago, changing his gaze to the tropics, its inhabitants and their daily life, as well as to the birds and foliage of our coast." Juan Castro and Velázquez, Critic and and art curator BIOGRAPHY EXPOSITION CATALOG

Garvin Sierra | A Cry in the Hand English Version By Humberto Figueroa, Curatorial Advisor The graphic message from protest art is a demand for justice and truth. A valuable aspect of this expression is the poster, which, due to its location on the wall and in the public's transit space, enjoys greater visibility. In times of advanced use of virtual technology, the art of denunciation and protest acquires greater capacity for multiplication through electronic networks. Its capacity for deployment is equivalent to a powerful force. The exhibition A Cry in the Hand recognizes the classic definition of the poster as a cry on the wall. Nowadays, the wall is the screen of a cell phone or any device that receives the signal emanating from a transmitter connected to the electronic medium. The Museo de Las Américas shares the exhibition by Puerto Rican artist Garvin Sierra from one of its galleries. A Cry in the Hand brings together a selection that summarizes the most discussed and debated topics in the media in recent years. Creating at ground level – Ana Teresa Toro A cry in the hand – Humberto Figueroa Garvin Sierra – Antonio Martorell

Entrelazados English Version By Irma V. Arzola, Art Historian Federico Farrington is an artist who playfully explores human interaction while manifesting a singular inner openness. “Entrelazados” is a playful exploration of the ambivalence perceptible in the human spectacle through the iconographic syncretism of sexualized, androgynous, zoomorphic bodies, distorted and fused in indeterminate spaces. The traces of the pictorial process, the history of its becoming, are evident on the surface of the substrate. These constitute a plastic deconstruction that serves as testimony to the development of Farrington's visual art. From the moment I met Federico, more than a decade ago, he was already creating enigmatic and provocative images with polyvalent readings that seem to emanate from a bestiary of chimeras. Farrington conveys dreamlike scenes that confront the viewer with the paradoxical nature of existence. "Interlaced" externalizes his meditations on social roles and the different personas each individual constructs and employs to relate to others. The undefined environments contain mythological figures and characters from the circus world, whose physiognomies embody their psyches and who participate in narratives about violence, power, and love. In this new series, Farrington works on altarpieces in a way that reveals the fluidity and experimental, intuitive, and historical nature of his process. The artist carefully considers each stroke, tone, and volume captured, studying its effect on the whole. He intervenes in the surface using oil brushstrokes and occasionally alters them with sandpaper and stencils transferred with spray paint, thereby deconstructing the pictorial technique and the assumed result. The surfaces are rich and luminous, even when the palette is limited to a few colors and their grisailles. The polychromatic effect intensifies the sensation of penetrating and participating in a fantastical world that engenders curiosity and incites synesthetic experiences. “Entrelazados” achieves a space filled with stimuli and convergences that invite reflection, feeling, and close observation. The distorted, extended, and undefined interstices of form and concept make the viewer a participating agent of the meaning revealed in each representation. ARTIST STATEMENT My creative process brings with it a narrative where diverse images and topics simultaneously converge, from the most mundane, the deeply psychological, the ritualistic, the political commentary, the humorous, the erotic, to the sublime. With the strokes and colors of my works, I explore the planes of a distorted reality that navigates between caricature-like innuendos and the transpersonal plane. Paradoxically, elements of unreal truth persist in this reading, where locality disappears in a timeless space and characters interact in a playful atmosphere with irreverent humor. The density and lightness of human existence are polarized, acting as a pendulum that moves between opposites or variants; Ambiguity and vulnerability are responses to the quantum world of multiple possibilities, to the ever-present uncertainty of knowing and not knowing, and above all, to appreciating the beauty of mystery. Federico Farrington BIOGRAPHICAL DATA

Transitions in Time | Olmedo Quimbita English Version Time changes, minute by minute… Non-repeatable traces in each work created in a given year, traveling on the long journey of emotions. Yesterday was present and today is the past. Infinite creativity riding the horse of time, traces captured in unrepeatable symbols and colors, forming part of the great human collection and passing through, with my profound and ethereal message, the soul of whoever contemplates it. Olmedo Quimbita “I can always say that I distinguish his painting… For the style he has cultivated and refined during his long and ongoing career in so many exhibitions, in the most unusual places in the world. Using a palette of very light shades and truly summary drawing, Olmedo Quimbita long ago stopped painting the Andean world, shifting his gaze to the tropics, its inhabitants and their daily life, as well as to the birds and foliage of our coast.” Juan Castro y Velázquez Art critic and curator BIOGRAPHICAL DATA EXHIBITION CATALOGUE

EntreLAZADOS | English Version Versión Español Por Irma V. Arzola, Art historian Federico Farrington is an artist who investigates human interaction in a mischievous way while manifesting a singular inner aperture. “Entrelazados” is a ludic exploration of the perceptible ambivalence in the human spectacle through the iconographic syncretism of sexual, androgynous, zoomorphic, distorted and fused bodies within indeterminate spaces. The traces of the pictorial process, the history of its becoming, are evident on the substrate’s surface. These constitute a plastic deconstruction that serves as a testimony to Farrington’s plastic development. From the moment I met Federico, more than a decade ago, he was already creating enigmatic and provocative images with polyvalent interpretations that seem to emanate from a bestiary of chimeras. Farrington conveys oneiric scenes that confront the viewer with the paradoxical nature of existence. “Entrelazados” externalizes his meditations on the social roles and different personas that each individual construct and employs to relate to the other. The indefinite environments containmythological figures and circus characters, whose physiognomy embodies their psyche and who participate in narratives about violence, power, and love. In this new series, Farrington works on a wooden substrate in a manner that reveals the experimental, intuitive, and historical nature and fluidity of his process. The artist carefully considers each stroke, tone and volume manifested, studying their effect on the whole. He intervenes the surface using oil paint and a brush and, at other times, alters it them with sandpaper and transfers stencils with spray paint in order to deconstruct the pictorial technique and presupposed result. The surfaces are rich and luminous, even when the palette is limited to a few colors and their grisailles. The polychrome effect intensifies the feeling of penetrating and participating in a fantastic world that engenders curiosity and incites synesthetic experiences. “Entrelazados” creates a space replete with stimuli and converges that invite the spectator to reflect, feel and observe attentively. The interstices of form and the distorted, extended, and indeterminate concepts transform the audience into an active participant in uncovering the meaning of each representation. ARTIST STATEMENT My creative process brings with it a narrative where various images and topics converge simultaneously from the most mundane to the deep psychological, the ritualistic, the political commentary, the humor, the erotic and the sublime. With the lines and traces of colors, I investigate the planes of a distorted reality that navigates between caricaturistic innuendos to the transpersonal plane. Paradoxically, elements of non-real truth persist in this reading, where the locality disappears in a timeless space and the characters interact in a playful atmosphere with irreverent humor. The density and lightness of human existence are polarized, acting as a“pendulum” that moves between opposites or variants; ambiguity and its vulnerability are responses to the “quantum” world of multiple possibilities, to the ever-existing uncertainty of knowing not knowing and above all to appreciating the beauty of mystery. Federico Farrington BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS

Jorge Sierra | Fuera del Marco – English Version Versión Español   By Ingrid María Jiménez Martínez Jorge Sierra, a San Juan native, all the way down to his grandparents. Has a BA from the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture School of Fine Arts, where he learned as a disciple from artists of the stature of Jose Alicea, Augusto Marin, Lorenzo Omar, Luis Hernandez Cruz and Fran Cervoni. Being a lifelong San Juan resident, he had the advantage of being friends with artists such as Antonio Maldonado, Emilio Diaz Valcarcel, Clara Lair, Rafael Tufino, Amilcar Tirado, Julio Rosado del Valle, Carlos Raquel Rivera, Carlos Irizarry and Elizam Escobar, among others. He has participated in numerous collective and individual exhibits, being the most recent individual ones, two at the Botello Gallery in Old San Juan, and at la Casa del Libro Museum. Jorge Sierra’s work is a series of pictoric statements about the nature of painting and the spatial limits of its representations. The artist has given an innovative spin to the relationship between the frame and the painting, the outside and the inside, and the spatial limits of the composition. Sierra retains the shapes; however, he abandons, in part, the illusory space, using it instead to create flat collages of strong contours. He integrates the frame to the composition, and some of the figures, like those on his paintings titled El Lenguilargo, Queer Queen and Los Agujeros whose borders manage to escape, are related to the content of the painting. His transgression of the borders is not only a formal issue, but also becomes poetic, ideological and social. Even when the frame is thought of as an insurmountable physical limit, the figures escape from that confinement suggesting a complex reality the composition has a very hard time retaining or accounting for. The frame in Sierra’s work offers the freedom or the possibility of breaking free as a promise. Being able to break free as a promise of happiness substitutes Stendhal’s famous phrase “Beauty is a promise of happiness”. To my understanding, it is in this strength wherein the poetic bias of Outside the Frame resides. Sierra seems to be telling us that the pursuit of self-determination is the way to face the most pressing issues of our times. ART BY JORGE SIERRA

Garvin Sierra | Un grito en la mano English Version   Por Humberto Figueroa, Asesor curatorial El mensaje gráfico desde el arte de la protesta es reclamo de justicia y de la verdad. Una valiosa vertiente de esa expresión es el cartel que por su destino en la pared y en el espacio de tránsito del pueblo cuenta con una visibilidad mayor. En tiempos de avanzados manejos desde la tecnología virtual el arte de denuncia y protesta adquiere mayor capacidad de multiplicación desde las redes electrónicas. Su capacidad de despliegue es equivalente a una fuerza poderosa. La exhibición Un grito en la mano reconoce la clásica definición del cartel como un grito en la pared. En nuestros días la pared es la pantalla del móvil o de todo equipo que es receptor de la señal que emana desde un emisor conectado con el medio electrónico. El Museo de Las Américas comparte desde una de sus salas la exhibición del artista puertorriqueño Garvin Sierra. Un grito en la mano reúne una selección que resume sobre los temas de mayor discusión y debate en los medios de comunicación en los pasados años. Crear al ras del suelo – Ana Teresa Toro Un grito en la mano – Humberto Figueroa Garvin Sierra – Antonio Martorell