Verum’s newest exhibit, ABRAZO embraces a bigger scope of the entire Verum-sphere!
Verum’s newest exhibit, ABRAZO (meaning embrace or hug)embraces a bigger scope of the entire Verum-sphere! For the past 10 years Verum has produced many large exhibitions, settling into the truth that all prospective exhibitions are problems waiting for unique solutions. And the problems (just like the work) come in all shapes and sizes.
As a curator I relish the chance to reveal the resounding voice from the plethora of submissions, but within the stringent selection process great works often remain unseen with the turning of each show. My hope with ABRAZO was to create an exhibit that would honor more artists, so I set out to embrace the entire pool of submissions (and select 1 work from every artist’s entry). This method proved to be both a difficult and rewarding challenge. I compare it to trying to hug an ocean (the harder I tried to hold the enormity, the more it would spill out from my grasp to surround me).
This ABRAZO undertaking flooded my screen with a diverse cacophony of media, content, and divergent narratives, but still held the familiar pull of discovery. My trust in the process propelled me and I noticed the commonalities (and the notes of contrast too); and I tuned into what might be. A more cohesive thread began to emerge from the mass.
The resulting collection thrusts from a thatching of hands, arms, and wings; and takes flight around the idea of belonging or being held (by something or someone). This belonging or holding takes shape in groups of people and in solitary figures (holding space in unique ways). It can be found in the way the light hugs a tree line or in a tangle of hands. Or discovered in sphere-forms that nest and coil in on themselves, and within the symbolism woven into other world-scapes that hold the imagination.
It is found in birds and all the stories they carry ...
...and in the expressive abstracts that embrace the mark of process and emotion.
This exhibit momentarily eternalizes the glorious beauty of nature, while also expressing some of the flaws of our human condition and the habitual patterns that stalk us. ABRAZO rises and falls in waves to hit a flurry of energy and vibration from its maximalist saturation. ABRAZO demonstrates that the immense things (like oceans) are not for holding too tightly, but rather for awe, appreciation, and a little pandemonium, too! Perhaps it’s the big, complex-imperfect things that have the ability to transform perspectives with their unfathomable enormity and depth.
I give you ABRAZO, may you embrace the waves and float on with VERUM!
Please celebrate this gigantic, imperfectly-perfect exhibition. It holds so much of our expression and is officially the biggest Verum exhibit to date (in terms of works selected)with 143 artists and 148 works of art in one show!
The above bar goes directly to the ABRAZO webpage and the red bar below takes you to VERUM VIRTUAL where you may view the works in scale. Please allow extra, extra loading time for this enormous exhibit (in Verum Virtual)and then see works in scale!