Fridman Gallery is honored to present Arleene Correa Valencia’s first solo exhibition in New York City, CÓDICE •• SOBREVIVIENDO A LA PERSECUCIÓN / CODEX •• SURVIVING THE PERSECUTION, in collaboration with Catharine Clark Gallery.

In CÓDICE •• SOBREVIVIENDO A LA PERSECUCIÓN / CODEX •• SURVIVING THE PERSECUTION, Bay Area-based artist Arleene Correa Valencia continues and expands her exploration of family history and Mexican migrant narratives through multimedia paintings and textiles. Made in close collaboration with family and community members, the series presents a timely protest at a moment when immigration is at the forefront of American politics, reminding us how art and joy can form meaningful modes of resistance.

Today, we are beyond rhetoric. From ICE carrying out acts of domestic terrorism in the United States, to the military kidnapping the president of Venezuela to travel restrictions on South American, Middle Eastern and African countries, nationalism and white supremacy have become clearly linked projects. As a direct result, we have also seen some of the largest outpourings of public protest in recent history across the nation and a renewed sense of solidarity. This solidarity does not come in spite of difference but rather in celebration of it.

Correa Valencia, who is a DACA recipient, has spent much of her practice focused on documenting the emotional experience of these realities, ultimately celebrating a proud lineage of survival. While her work is in dialogue with modern masters of representing the immigrant experience in paint, like Jacob Lawrence and Hung Liu, it is also rooted in a cultural tradition of historiography. In pre-Columbian and early colonial Mexico, Indigenous scribes created codices to record histories, migrations and genealogies through visual imagery. Correa Valenica’s work continues this ancestral practice through a contemporary lens, blending inherited and modern-day techniques to record her familial experience, painted in collaboration with her father, and featuring embroidery by her mother in law. The amate paper on which Correa Valencia works is handcrafted by Jose Daniel Santos De La Puerta, a paper maker in San Pablito, Mexico.

When communities feel powerless, joy can feel distant and art can feel like a weak gesture, especially against the state. The work in CÓDICE •• SOBREVIVIENDO A LA PERSECUCIÓN / CODEX •• SURVIVING THE PERSECUTION reminds us that art can also be a tool for reclaiming power through joy, celebration and recognition. The revolution happens every day, in moments of personal connection and intimacy. Even if we are bound by invisible threads, it is art like this that helps us remember them, offering lifelines that will hold us together.

Written by Max Blue.
Art critic, San Francisco Examiner.