UNFOLD :: Cristobal Alday, Amanda Linares & Jose Luis Garcia :: Curated by Yi Chin Hsieh

DRIFT

APRIL 6-MAY 4, 2023

MEMBERS COCKTAIL HOUR :: THURSDAY, APRIL 6 @ 6-7PM (BECOME A MEMBER)

OPENING RECEPTION :: THURSDAY, APRIL 6 @ 7-9PM

1624 E. 7TH AVE., YBOR CITY

Gallery hours :: Gallery hours :: Thursdays 11am-8pm, Fridays 11am-2pm, and Saturdays by appointment - text 813-340-9056

UNFOLD is a curatorial project that aspires to present artworks influenced by literature, especially poetry, as well as explore the possibility of using creative art writing as exhibition text. In addition, the exhibition explores concepts such as identity, absence, and reconnection through the extended and intentional use of materials and space. The exhibition engages the idea of “in between”; the in-between of physical space (land and ocean, mainlands and islands), and the in-between of conceptual distance (memory loss between generations and within the family). Participating artists include Amanda Linares, Jose Luis Garcia, and Cristobal Alday.

Linares’ works are influenced by poetry. Her installations, photographs, artist books, and sculptures make use of poetic language and narration reflecting on memory and time. Similar yet different approaches, Garcia’s photographs are usually printed on paper and presented on an intimate scale. He uses found images from family archives, responses to the loss of memory within his family history reflecting aging and generational migration.

Alday’s artistic practice corresponds to his curatorial and writing approaches. In Alday’s past practices, he used collage-making and poetic responses to reflect on artists’ works and exhibitions; focused on the collaborative aspect of projects and art-making through creative writing. UNFOLD wishes to communicate as a curatorial project focusing on literature influences not only on artworks but also on exhibition text and art writing.

Cristobal Alday is a Queer Latinx curator and creative from the south side of Chicago. He focuses on photography, and film particularly dealing with queerness, familial dynamics, and space. He is an independent curator and currently conducts research for Johalla Projects as well as utilizing his room to curate exhibitions with works by local artists. His artistic practice influences his curatorial and writing approaches. Using collage making and poetic responses, he reflects on artists, their works, and exhibitions, and focuses on the collaborative aspect of projects and art-making through audience interaction via online platforms such as Instagram and in person. Has held previous positions at the Art Institute of Chicago-Prints and Drawings Department, Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University: Art Theory and Practice Department, National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago Artists Coalition, and Johalla Projects.

Jose Luis Garcia is an Educator and Photo-Based Artist, who works throughout the gamut of the photographic medium and often uses family archives as the source of their work. Garcia earned their Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Art from New World School of the Arts/University of Florida and their Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art from Florida International University. Garcia has taught various K-12 educational residencies as a Teaching Artist with Arts for Learning Miami, has led workshops with Miami Dade Public Libraries' The Vasari Project, is an Adjunct Professor at Miami Dade College and Broward College, and teaches Photography at New World School of the Arts in the high school division. Garcia resides in Hialeah, FL, and works throughout South Florida.

Amanda Linares is a Cuban-born visual artist based in Miami, FL. Her multidisciplinary interests led her to receive a technical degree in Printmaking from San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts, Havana, Cuba, and a BFA in Graphic Design from New World School of the Arts, Miami, FL. Linares’s work intimately sways between many universal issues, such as identity, displacement, absence, and reconnection through an immense variety of media from design and drawing to installation and photography. Influenced by literature and spatial awareness, her work contains a poetic language while exploring narration and space using reaction, transparency, revelation, found objects, and typographical solutions. Linares’ solo BFA project Between Islands and Peninsulas was displayed at the Bakehouse Art Complex, Miami, FL (2020). Her work has been exhibited at Oolite Arts, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Edge Zones, The Bonnier Gallery, and FAR Contemporary Gallery. Linares participated in the Home + Away residency at Atlantic Center for the Arts with Oolite Arts in 2021 and is currently a resident artist at the Bakehouse Art Complex.

Yi Chin Hsieh is a Taiwanese curator based in Miami, Florida. She holds a BFA in visual design from National Taiwan Normal University, and an MFA in visual arts from Florida International University. Her curatorial practice explores collaboration and artistic practice with artists. Her research interests are in curatorial methods under the discussion of exhibition forms, collectiveness, and contemporary visual culture in response to the current time, and aims to communicate the idea of blurring the line between the artist-as-curator and the curator-as-artist.

Hsieh has realized several curatorial projects in the Wolfsonian Museum, the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Spinello Projects, Laundromat Art Space, to name a few. She is a recipient of the Ellies Creator Awards (2022), The Harald Szeemann Grant awardee of IKT: International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art (2022), and the Artist Open House program awardee of City of Miami Beach (2021). Her publications were featured on Art Now Pakistan and UNAFRAID magazine, amongst others.

Besides her independent curatorial practice, Hsieh is also a working art professional in digital programming and digital collections. She works with national institutions and organizations such as Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, the Harpo Foundation, and Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, as well as other private collections.

Drift is located at 1624 E. 7th Ave. in Ybor City.

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Tempus Projects is dedicated to nurturing established and emerging local, national, and international artists through exhibitions, collaborations, residencies, and events. Our non-profit organization promotes artists working in all media, and develops, organizes, and hosts exhibitions that engage the Tampa Bay community through the arts.

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