LESLIE JIMÉNEZ: Catch the Light!, and Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago

Leslie jimÉnez: Catch the Light! On view june 28, 2018 - september 9, 2018 Catch the Light! features a surprising mix of framed drawings, hand-painted murals, and glass sculpture installation. Each of the delicately fabricated works in Jimenez’s first solo museum exhibition uses everyday materials like thread, paint, fabric, mylar and glass to highlight moments from her daily life in Washington Heights. Presented at the culmination of Jimenez’s year-long residency at the Museum, this project transforms the artist-in-residence studio into a space that promotes curiosity, self-exploration and mindfulness. INSIDE THE EXHIBITION The hand-stitched drawings from Jimenez’s Humble Heroes series use a simple line to show the strength she sees in the women and caregivers in her life. In the 3-D line drawings, she captures often unrecognized labor and care--her neighbor as she guides a child to school, the motion of another woman pushing a stroller along, the beauty in a small detail on the side of the building across the street. In “Think-ing, Feel-ing, Be-ing, Learn-ing, Heal-ing, Stay-ing”, thirty glass bulbs each hold an embroidered piece of cloth depicting hands, brains and hearts. Bringing together durable and fragile materials like fabric and glass, the sculpture speaks to how precious life can be. In all, Catch the Light! reminds us to take time to see through things to the strength and power that exists in ourselves and those in our community. Leslie Jiménez is a multi-disciplinary artist, illustrator, and museum educator. Based in NY, where she works and lives with her husband and daughter. Ms. Jiménez graduated from the prestigious Altos de Chavón School of Design, in the Dominican Republic. She was awarded a full scholarship from Parsons The New School for Design in New York City, where she graduated with honors. Leslie Jimenez' work has been selected for public art projects in Washington Heights and Harlem. Leslie's work has been exhibited in galleries in NYC, Washington DC, Barbados, Santo Domingo, SCOPE Contemporary Art Fair NY, Wheaton Arts Cultural Center, and New York Presbyterian. Other venues include PBS, the Financial Times and online magazine Mashable. Jiménez has been invited to talk about her work at El Museo del Barrio, CNN en Español, Rutgers University, City College, Art In FLUX and Parsons The New School.

Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago On view June 28, 2018 - september 23, 2018 Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago features recent works by more than 80 artists with roots in more than a dozen islands of the Caribbean. Curated by Tatiana Flores and presented in conjunction with Columbia University's Wallach Art Gallery, Relational Undercurrents was initially conceived as part of The Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA and debuted at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, California. Relational Undercurrents encompasses painting, sculpture, photography, video, installation and performance art. Artist on view at Sugar Hill: Firelei Báez, Christopher Cozier, Ricardo de Armas, Humberto Díaz, Scherezade García, Adler Guerrier, Jeannette Ehlers, Frances Gallardo, Marlon Griffith, Quisqueya Henríquez, Nadia Huggins, Karlo Andrei Ibarra, Deborah Jack, Miguel Luciano, Jason Mena, Charo Oquet, Marianela Orozco, Fausto Ortiz, Manuel Piña, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Roberto Stephenson and Juana Valdes. Deborah Jack, Evidence 19 from series when the evidence of our tears were reborn as…, 2012 Fausto Ortiz, Fragments from the series Exodus, 2013 Firelei Báez, Detail of Bloodlines, 2015 Jeannette Ehlers, Still from Black Bullets, 2012 About Columbia University's Wallach Gallery Established in 1986, the Wallach Art Gallery is the University's premier visual arts space. We are a platform for critically acclaimed exhibitions, a dynamic range of programming and publications that contribute to scholarship. The Wallach Art Gallery advances Columbia’s historical, critical and creative engagement with the visual arts. Serving as both a laboratory and a forum, the Wallach Art Gallery offers opportunities for curatorial practice and discourse, while bridging the diverse approaches to the arts at the University with a welcome broader public. We present projects that are organized by graduate students and faculty in the department of art history and archaeology or by other Columbia scholars, focus on the contemporary artists of our campus and communities and offer new scholarship on University special collections. Artists on view at the Wallach (Relational Undercurrents' exhibit): Elia Alba, Allora & Calzadilla, Ewan Atkinson, Nicole Awai, David Bade, René Emil Bergsma, Samir Bernárdez, Jorge Luis Bradshaw, Ernest Breleur, Charles Campbell, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Tony Capellán, Fermín Ceballos, Vladimir Cybil Charlier, Camille Chedda, Nayda Collazo-Llorens, Natusha Croes, Tony Cruz, Blue Curry, Maksaens Denis, Jean-Ulrick Désert, Humberto Díaz, Edouard Duval-Carrié, Jeannette Ehlers, Edgar Endress with incarcerated Haitians, Sofía Gallisá Muriente, Lilian Garcia-Roig, Maria Elena González, Andil Gosine, Marlon Griffith, David Gumbs, Quisqueya Henríquez, Sasha Huber, Charles Juhasz-Alvarado, Jean-Luc de Laguarigue, Marc Latamie, Glenda León, Sofia Maldonado, Carlos Martiel, María Martínez-Cañas and Kim Brown, Jason Mena, Ibrahim Miranda, Kishan Munroe, Angel Otero, Raquel Paiewonsky, Lynn Parotti, Manuel Piña, Jorge Pineda, Barbara Prézeau, Jimmy Robert, Glenda Salazar Leyva, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Nyugen Smith, Lisa C Soto, Ellen Spijkstra, Sandra Stephens and David Sansone, Didier William.