The paintings and multi-disciplinary work of Scherezade García and Kyrin Hobson are now on view in the exhibition “Over Water” at the Martin-Mullen Gallery, at SUNY Oneonta’s Fine Arts Center. SUNY Oneonta is located at 108 Ravine Parkway, Oneonta, New York. An opening reception will take place on Thursday, November 6, from 5:00 to 7:00pm. “Over Water” closes on December 13, 2025.
Description: Over Water is a two-person show featuring new work by Scherezade Garcia (Brooklyn, NY, and Austin, TX) and Kyrin Hobson (Chicago, IL), who met while in residence at the Golden Foundation this past summer. Their work weaves together elegantly, insistently telling the history and impact of migration and colonization and building these themes in beautifully different directions, both in style and focus.
Hobson is attentive to the embodiment of history and the lasting impacts of healthcare inequality and racialization. From her narrative paintings, which present the body as a physical manifestation representative of countless generations, to her expressionistic flesh prints with pooled auras of color, her interpretation of gesture, feminist and Afro-diasporic storytelling, and invocation of personal details summon the humanity behind history.
Garcia, in kind, references the lasting effects of colonialism within the Caribbean and contemplates the fraught movement of communities across the water seeking safety or following dreams. Her intensely saturated canvases feature beatific figures that sink into a sea of color under a dark wash. While the precarity of immigration haunts the work, her self-assured inhabitants are floated by life preservers, filigree, flora, or Baroque headpieces paired with a steady, patient gaze.
What is most striking, though, is the similarities in their work and practice. Both artists often leave their canvases loose, able to be wrapped up and carried away quickly if need be. Both focus on color, gesture, and gaze as their protagonists – all of whom are compounded presences – calmly go about their lives amidst a riot of color and activity. Their bold storytelling from the diasporic communities that saturate the US has led to undeniable works that both shout from the walls and conspiratorially beckon the viewer to their intimate spaces.
Interested in learning more about this topic? Check out some suggested further reading selected by Dr. Maria Chavez Daza (SUNY Oneonta, Africana and Latinx Studies).
For more information, see https://suny.oneonta.edu/art-galleries
Also see https://www.kyrinhobsonstudio.com/home and https://www.scherezade.net/
[Poster above by Connor Mead.]
@scherezadegarcia
@praxis.newyork
@kyrinhobson