Exhibitions at Ruiz-Healy Art and The Hole Tribeca show how contemporary artists are inspired by and reinterpret traditional Spanish still lifes, religion and myth.
Artists of all stripes love rummaging through the drawers of history, searching for subject matter on which to put their own contemporary spin. Whether it be the courtly-meets-quirky “Bridgerton,” the budget- and fact-bending “Napoleon” or the ever-expanding library of musical covers, artists have been driven to take up the style and substance of the past to deliver a modern message. Visual artists are no exception, as is evident in a pair of gallery shows currently on view here.
On the Upper East Side, Ruiz-Healy Art—a space that focuses on “Latinx, Latin America, & Texas Contemporary Art”—has staged “Contemporary Bodegones.” The bodegón was an often-symbolic still life that mainly depicted food and meals. It rose to prominence in Spain in the late 16th century and held a place of pride there. While in other European countries still lifes were largely dismissed as less meritorious than other styles of painting, bodegones were executed by such greats as Francisco de Zurbarán, Felipe Ramírez, Diego Velázquez and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.
