Carol Damian

Art meets today’s political debate over immigration in this beautifully illustrated exploration of Nicario Jiménez Quispe’s retablos. This beautifully illustrated full-color book offers a unique depiction of the current immigration debate through the lens of renowned Peruvian artist Nicario Jiménez Quispe, a recent immigrant to the United States. An internationally recognized maker of retablos, Jiménez has begun creating work that powerfully encapsulates the struggles, possibilities, and tragedies of immigration from the Global South to North America. A decorative box with figures in the interior, a retablo traditionally was used to pay homage to certain saints in Peru. In Spain, they were used as portable altars for itinerant priests who carried them to perform mass in remote areas. In the Andes, the retablo became a sort of magical-religious box designed to increase fertility among animals that served as a means of exchange in a cash-free, rural environment. The authors, leading historians of Latin America, contextualize Jiménez’s compelling art, to offer creative new insights on the bitter immigration disputes that are dividing our nation.

This book is about feminist, social and political art by Kyra Belan and a record of her solo exhibition at Ceres Gallery, New York. Her works include paintings, drawings in colored pencils, textual and mixed media. Created in contemporary realist or surreal styles these artworks express her feminist, political and ecological concerns, and her interpretations of symbols, legends and myths that are relevant to women. They convey multiple layers of messages that are accessible and relevant to the observers. The two main Series featured in this solo exhibition are her ongoing Lady Liberty and the Amazing Women.