Ritual: Works on Paper by Miguel Rivera and Soad A. Kader
June 19 - July 31, 2010
Opening Night Reception: Friday, June 25, 7-10pm

Cara and Cabezas Contemporary is pleased to present the exhibition Ritual: Works on Paper by Miguel Rivera and Soad A. Kader, on view from June 19 - July 31, 2010. You are invited to attend the opening on Friday, June 25 at 7 pm at Cara and Cabezas Contemporary.

Ritual acts and their aims to symbolically unite humans are explored in the abstract works by Miguel Rivera of Kansas City and Soad A. Kader of San Francisco. Two bastions of Latin American culture serve as points of departure for Rivera and Kader: religion and dance respectively. Both artists explore ideas of physical connectivity, and through their print-based processes, they exhibit a tendency towards embracing the “present.”

Kader utilizes a monotype printing process and Rivera employs experimental printmaking processes to create works spontaneous in feel, abstract in form, and rich with content. All works in the exhibition are in tones of black and grey, on backgrounds of white or charcoal. The paring down of color spectrum draws the viewer’s attention to subtleties of mark, texture, form, and gesture.

Featured in Ritual are two multi-paneled works on paper by Rivera both Untitled. He has employed toner and charcoal, pushing pigment across multiple sheets of paper. The intention behind his work is to engage and react to Catholic iconography in order to create new abstract interpretations of the religion’s longstanding emphasis on “flesh and blood as catalysts for meaning.” The physical size of these drawings accentuates Rivera’s human presence, as the length of the work tests the limitations of the artist’s reach.

In another series of works, Assumption, Rivera has translated his abstract drawings to plates and printed the works on black sheets of paper using black ink. The images are on the verge of disappearing and the nuances of the ghostly images play into the double meaning of the title, Assumption, that refers to the Catholic belief ofVirgin Mary’s ascent to heaven.

Equally as expressive in form and movement are works from the series buscando el abrazo (searching for the embrace) created by Kader. In contrast to Rivera’s large scale works, Kader’s works are small and create an intimate viewing experience. The black and white monotypes reference the embrace of a dance, specifically tango, while simultaneously resembling the sonogram of a developing embryo. Considering one idea that our quest for embrace or buscando el abrazo, might come from a deep-rooted desire to reconnect to the womb, these works contextualize the human lifecycle in a succinct, spontaneous, and organic way.

Kader has produced several of these abstract forms alluding to a kind of meditation or routine practice. In considering the history of Argentine Tango as a medium for immigrants in Buenos Aires to experience intimacy apart from their families left behind in Europe, the tango embrace can only symbolically substitute the object of the search: true connection.

Soad A. Kader studied with Wayne Thiebaud, Manuel Neri, Roland Peterson, David Hollowell, and Squeak Carnwath among other artists at the University of California, Davis. Kader continued to learn and grow her art practice through work with a variety of artists of diverse disciplines, both locally and internationally, including a stay at an artist-in-residency program, Fundación Valparaíso, in Mojácar, Spain.

Miguel Rivera is originally from Guanajuato, Mexico and is now Chair of the Printmaking Department at the Kansas City Art Institute. He received his B.F.A. from Southern Oregon University and his M.F. A. from West Virginia University. His work has been exhibited extensively in Mexico as well as in venues in Washington, Oregon, and Japan.

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