La Carrera Fading in the Sun – The mind of a human being can be full of mysteries. Inside one’s mind, old histories and memories may appear slightly different from reality. Sometimes those memories are distorted and other times, they can even be erased completely. This exhibit by Jesus Treviño, revolves around his memories of a family ranch that was called “La Carrera” back in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, which he was disconnected from, growing up across the border in Brownsville, Texas. However, the pieces of art can take a viewer’s mind beyond just the artist’s memories.
The artist is interested in the personal, emotional, and social effects that are left as result of the erasure of history inside our minds along with the displacement of people. “I’m engaging familial histories: histories of injustice and collective memory by building a landscape of paintings and art objects which hold memory of what was and reveals traces of what remains. Histories and memories tend to be slippery or are actively erased, so structures are fragile and threaten to collapse, painted landscapes are shifting, dematerializing, and acting as a witness to figures dissolving and seeking to maintain identity and autonomy” he said. Not everything is as it seems, especially inside one’s faded memories, “Beneath the surface, underpaintings are buried forcing a slow reveal and discovery of unheard narratives fading in the sun” claims the artist.
With seventeen pieces varying from paintings to sculptures, Jesus Treviño expects the people to let their imagination fly, most importantly, think of these artworks as if they were part of their own remembrances or consequently, reminisce about their personal memories as if they were alike to these art pieces: “visitors are encouraged to observe, compare, role-play, and explore within the exhibition. In doing so, they can learn something that applies to far more than the subject at hand and they get to leave the exhibition with a different perspective on the whole world around them” he said.
Jesus Treviño (b. 1995, Brownsville, Texas) received a BA in Studio Art from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in 2018 and his MFA in Painting/Drawing at the University of Texas at Austin. His work is rooted from his experience being raised on the U.S./Mexico border and deals with the erasure of history, displacement of people, and its residual personal, emotional, and social effects. He has had three solo exhibitions in Texas at Martha’s Contemporary, Austin (2022) and the Presa House Gallery, San Antonio (2022, 2019) as well as a two-person show at Contra Common, Bee Cave (2021). He has also organized a group exhibition at the Visual Arts Center, Austin, TX (2020) and has been included in group exhibitions at Exhibit/208 in Albuquerque, NM (2022); Las Cruces Museum of Art, NM (2022); the Lawndale Art Center, Houston, TX (2022); The Cole Art Center, Nacogdoches, TX (2021); Field Projects Gallery, New York (2021); Carlsbad Museum and Art Center, NM (2021) and the Rockport Center for the Arts, Rockport, TX (2021). Most recently he attended the Desert Door Residency through Big Medium, Austin, TX (2022); Rockland Residency in Belfair, WA (2022) and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Madison, ME (2022).
Artwork Credit: Jesus Trevino. Cartographer del Ranch, oil on canvas, 60 x 60 in., 2021.
