In this grand composition, the deep cobalt of the ocean links three ethereal yet resilient female figures adrift at sea. Anchored by a flotation ring that symbolizes the precariousness of modern migration, they embody some of the cultures and geographies that have come to shape Latin America in postcolonial times—Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Though separate, they are entangled through a luminous golden sash and the swirling waves. This mixture of cultures is embodied by the cinnamon hue of the figures, which according to Scherezade García results from mixing specific colors (white, black, yellow, red, and brown), and is therefore symbolically charged. The figures are neither portraits nor types but rather amalgams of the important women in the artist’s life that she conjures through the act of memory.
An interdisciplinary artist, García moved from the Dominican Republic to New York in 1986 to attend Parsons School of Design. Her dual identity as an islander has made her keenly aware of the role of the ocean in connecting and dividing people. Water becomes the stage of her exuberant, color-filled compositions and a vector of the diasporic experience of her own community and beyond—what she calls a “liquid highway.” “I see water as an obstacle which we need to navigate and cross,” García has said, “as a mass. . . that carries our history, memories, DNA.”
Ilona Katzew
2024
