HALSEY MCKAY GALLERY

March 25 – April 30 | 79 Newtown Lane, East Hampton

For all inquiries please email info@halseymckay.com

Halsey McKay is pleased to present, Listo, a solo exhibition of new paintings from Studio Lenca. The exhibition will run concurrently with Chisme, on view March 12 – April 16, at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill. Studio Lenca is the working name of artist Jose Campos – ‘Studio’ referring to a space for experimentation and constantly shifting place; ‘Lenca’ referring to the name of the artists ancestors from El Salvador. Campos was born in La Paz, El Salvador and like many had to flee the country during its civil war during the late 1980s. He travelled to the US by land, illegally with his mother and grew up in the gaze of a strictly conservative administration – an ‘illegal alien’. Studio Lenca is focused on ideas

surrounding difference, knowledge and visibility. Studio Lenca’s process starts with personal memories and is underpinned by social activism and different forms of praxis.

The four paintings on view tell an autobiographical story which navigates borders and identities destroyed, redrawn and erased through colonisation and war. The portraits depict the artist and his community proudly wearing hats and vibrant colors in noble defiance of the ‘western’ discourse around migration. Campos uses the oversized hat, saturation and bold pattern to take take control and reclaim space in an environment where his subjects are forced to stay hidden from authority and violence.