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Reimagining the Narrative
In his most recent body of work (2014-15) Luna reintroduces themes from his earlier work but now in an entirely new medium: textile. The woven tapestries hanging in this gallery are the result of an ambitious collaboration between Luna and the renowned Magnolia Editions in Oakland California, a studio that works with some of the world's foremost artists, that sought to shift Luna's work from analog to digital production.
To create these masterful tapestries, Luna creates individual sketches on paper, working closely with Magnolia as it translates these detailed works into digital renderings. A mechanical loom reads the digital renderings, capturing a level of detail not immediately evident to the naked eye. Multiple surfaces stacked one upon another combine to create a deep field of woven layers, with alternating vibrant and somber colors. The production process and its physical results mirror the functions of the human eye, which observes a broad colorful composition from afar, but the infinite abstraction of individual colored threads. up close, serving as a visual metaphor for how divination can convey a broader message across the details of individual readings. The use of textile also creates an intimate relationship between the viewer and the piece that mirrors the artist's own engagement with his art during its production and raises questions about the complex interaction of distance, comprehension and connection. Vernacular cultural references drawn from Nigeria, Cuba, and South Florida, play into the tapestries' pictorial compositions, complementing depictions of Ifa philosophical concepts that allude to the shared spiritual legacies in these communities. Decorative, functional, imaginative, and complex, these tapestries simultaneously look back to a venerable history of artistic expression and yet are firmly embedded in the age of mechanical and digital reproduction, like the guajiro, the connective thread between Cuba's past and future. |