shows
en casa
East Hampton, NY
"The Arts Center at Duck Creek is pleased to present En Casa, an exhibition of mixed-media paintings by Misla in the John Little Barn. June 10 - July 9, 2023
Misla is a native New Yorker and mixed-media artist specifically interested in the Nuyorican (New York - Puerto Rican) experience. For En Casa, she will present an ongoing series of mixed-media paintings alongside an installation of furniture and other domestic trappings, all of which celebrate the imagery and ephemera of distinctly Nuyorican apartments.
Many of the paintings on view depict interior scenes of the artist’s Queens apartment of over 28 years. Some pieces also reference interiors from apartments in the Lower East Side where she was born and her father was raised. Painted at nearly life-scale, and collaged with various materials (a lace tablecloth; bottles; brand-name labels; a birthday banner) they invite you to enter the image as you would enter the space of a room.
One painting titled Ajax the Great appears voyeuristic, a view from the outside into an apartment building bathroom, replete with the window grate, a bottle of Ajax, and socks hung out to dry from the shower curtain rod. As in many of the works, it is brightly colored and rich in intimate details, a testament to both the rose-colored lenses of childhood memories, and also their staying power.
In all of the scenes, the apartments feel lived in, and cherished. The artist’s use of prosaic imagery draws the viewer into the warmth and familiarity of each room, and examines them as you might examine a portrait.
Misla has described this project as an attempt to map what is left behind when we move from one home to the next throughout our lives. As so many New Yorkers (and Nuyoricans) do not own their apartments, and rising rents often drive a nomadic lifestyle, this gesture of archiving past homes feels all the more poignant."
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
WHaT a PaRT OF THE aPaRTMENT MEaNT
Amidst the ever-changing city, I have remained in the same apartment in Queens for over twenty-eight years. As my work pays homage to past Latinx spaces, I created a series rendering my childhood home before I leave it behind. What a Part of the Apartment Meant is a series of mixed media paintings of my home created as I transition out of it and the parts of it I take with me.
Valuing a childlike perspective, each work has vivid colors, textures, and an opportunity to curiously explore the scenes. Based on photos and memory, I depict each room around the liminal time of 1999-2000. I use paint, design, collaged material, tile, and found objects to address the collective narrative of transitioning into adulthood. Each part of the series captures fragments of personal references while honoring the collective aesthetic of the Nuyorican interior.
The focus on each separate room, the mosaic tile, the items behind open doors, and the stacked pieces recall such themes of the varied parts of a whole Nuyorican culture and the duality of the Latinx identity.
artnet.com/galleries/praxis/what-a-part-of-the-apartment-meant
BENDITA CaSITA
With a specific interest in the Nuyorican perspective, Bendita Casita depicted an amalgamated Latinx apartment. Misla's first solo show welcomed viewers into this sacred home, acknowledging our current relationship to domestic spaces.
Misla is an emerging artist whose works celebrate the Puerto Rican diaspora with immersive paintings in combination with collage, digital design, and installation. She explores the adaptation of Caribbean culture in a threatened urban environment through abstract depictions of apartment interiors. Honoring the duality of the Latinx experience, the show was curiously welcoming, helping to emphasize our recently renewed connection with the home.
Select pieces have been exhibited by Queens College, Plaxall Gallery, Aquarius Studios, with The Latinx Project in the notable 2019 show Afrosyncretic, with The Heckscher Museum Emerging Artist Series, and with Praxis Gallery at Art Miami.
