News Releases

NJCU Professors, Alumni Involved in Hispanic Heritage Month Exhibit at Perth Amboy Gallery Center for the Arts

“Pura Cuba,” a Hispanic Heritage Month exhibition curated by Dr. Jose Rodeiro, a professor of art at New Jersey City University, and Raul Villarreal, an NJCU alumnus and adjunct professor of art, and featuring works by NJCU alumni Olga Mercedes Bautista and Todd Doney as well as several regional artists, will be shown through Friday, October 31 at Perth Amboy Gallery Center for the Arts, 339 Reade Street in Perth Amboy.

Gallery hours are 1:00 – 6:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and by appointment. For further information call the Center at (732)826-8083 or visit http://www.perthamboygallery.org/exhibits/.

Also featuring works by Rob Barth, Laura L. Cuevas, Alice F. MacKenzie, Fermin Mendoza, Jesus Rivera, Edel Rodriguez, and Larry Ross, “Pura Cuba” includes works by artists who are working on Cuban and Cuban-American themes.

The exhibit features paintings, sculptures, photographs, digital works, and installations.

“Pura Cuba” explores the themes of inclusion and exclusion that have imbued Cuban culture with a sense of being dispersed, disseminated, and assimilated--a state of existing aqui y alla (here and there) as perpetual outsiders. This sense of disconnection deeply affects Cubans, on and off the island, thereby placing all of them in a variety of ever-widening cultural diasporas.

“Pura Cuba” recognizes and acknowledges art’s role in reconciling Cuba’s 21st century divergent socio-cultural aspirations. As a metaphor for artistic inspiration and creativity, “Pura Cuba” embraces universal manifestations of Cuban artistic expression by examining the influence of Cuba and its history and culture on the imagination of artists from diverse backgrounds. Consequently, the curatorial intention of “Pura Cuba” is to present individual personal perspectives generating complex works of art that simultaneously convey or evoke nostalgic reveries, awareness of the present, and the urge for a brighter future.

News releases by Ellen Wayman-Gordon, and Kelly Resch, Office of Public Information.