alternate universes: visualizing queer futurisms from February 10 to April 6, 2022 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Isabella M. Chilcoat
“Curves are natural, neutral in nature the same way they are on the body,”
according to one captivated and insightful gallery visitor speaking on Camila Tapia-Guilliams’s panel painting, The Muses.
Last Tuesday, I led a tour through the Stamp Gallery’s exhibition alternate universe: visualizing queer futurisms, which will be on view until April 6. I relate to the viewer’s fascination as I ponder the sloping red outlines of nude human forms that sweep in circular progression over the organic grain of an untreated wood board. The repeated subject exists in absolute harmony with the medium as complimentary topographic strokes in cobalt, evergreen, and burnt umber caress the two natural entities — the painted and the painted-on. Initially created as a segment for their final portfolio before earning a degree in studio art from the University of Maryland, Guilliams describes The Muses as a manifestation of their own identity exploration as a non-binary person. The Muses considers the history of the exploitation of women for the inspiration and progression of male success, the objectification of the female-presenting nude, and the male gaze in works of art and other representations of women. All of the abuses of both form and person perpetuate an inhospitable climate in art spaces around the globe toward any person or persons presenting visible signs of difference from the longstanding status quo centering predominantly white cis-gendered men’s work. Tying seamlessly into some of the exhibition’s main points of discourse, The Muses points to this ostracization as it extends beyond the gallery walls, festering in the woven fibers of society.
The panel’s dimensions of 24 x 48” translates roughly to a sideways movie poster. To behold this work in person, however, will initiate a deeper, tumultuous effect on the senses — the eye devours the information on the wall while plunged into summits then chasms of visual form and carried into an awareness of the self, the artist’s humble request for empathy. Studying the faces reveals subtle expressions that only suggest which emotions could fill the empty spaces between the red outlines constituting their bodies. Human curves echo natural wood grain as if to parallel the carbon impermanence of them both.
Finally, when the eye latches onto the last red of the right-most body that bends its head at an acute degree toward the left, the passageways of line carry the viewer back to the beginning to repeat the infinite process of discovery. To intone the conversation with my tour member once again, I consider how the world (or the universe) would look in the absence of bodily objectification, of gendered conventions sustained at the detriment of equity. What iterations of the future can exist from these histories?
Camila Tapia-Guilliams’s work is included in alternate universe: visualizing queer futurisms at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from February 10 – April 6, 2022.
Camila Tapia Guilliams will be joining two other artists in the Art of Community Care: Collaging Collective Action hybrid event in StudioA and zoom on March 16, 2022 at 6:00PM.
For more information on Camila TApia-Guilliams, visit https://but-also.com/Camila-Tapia-Guilliams-1 .
For more information on alternate universe: visualizing queer futurisms and related events, visit https://stamp.umd.edu/articles/stamp_gallery_presents_alternate_universe_visualizing_queer_futurisms .
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column] [/et_pb_row] [/et_pb_section]