Tropical Frequencies features artists from the Caribbean who create and engage with alternate realms in their work. These realms are heavily influenced by Caribbean culture, the tropics, memory, passed-down stories, and the artists’ African and Indigenous roots. Composing pieces that act as a medium to connect with the metaphysical, the artists tap into worlds that are imagined, spiritual, mythical, ancestral, and ultimately infinite.
The exhibition explores how the process of making and the final artwork serve as a portal to the intangible— a transmutation learned and sourced from Caribbean traditions. The paintings and sculptures connect back to the islands through repurposed organic and manmade materials such as wood, sand, coconuts, seashells, and clothing, each imbued with the energy and histories these materials hold. Through these imagined realms, the artists can process sentiments around home, belonging, and freedom - sensations that can be felt once you tap into the frequency.
Tropical Frequencies is developed as part of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Arts Center Curatorial Fellowship program, with curatorial assistance by Isa López.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
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Cheyenne Julien’s practice explores cultural and collective histories reflected through her own lived experiences. Often derived from memory, Julien’s paintings and drawings portray intimate subjects inspired by her closest relationships and life in New York City. Through portraits, landscapes, and still lifes, she highlights the interdependency of bodies and their contexts, focusing on the architectural settings and inanimate objects that impact daily routines. Grounded in the darker side of reality, but with a humorous bent, Julien’s work reveals the power of built environments to dictate racial perception.
Cheyenne Julien (b. 1994, Bronx, New York) lives and works in the Bronx, NY. She received her BFA in Painting at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2016. She has had solo and two-person exhibitions at Chapter NY, New York; Smart Objects, Los Angeles; Water McBeer, New York; and American Medium, New York. Julien’s work has also been included in exhibitions at James Fuentes, New York; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach; Canal Projects, New York; the Museum of the City of New York, New York; Paula Cooper, Palm Beach; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Galerie Hussenot, Paris; Hotel Europe, Zurich; Carl Freedman Gallery, Kent, UK; Anton Kern Gallery, New York; the Schlossmuseum, Linz, AUR; The Jewish Museum, New York; Gladstone Gallery, New York; Public Art Fund, New York; the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York; The Harvey Gantt Center, Charlotte; Mitchell-Innes and Nash, New York; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; Gavin Brown’s Enterprise/Unclebrother, Hancock, NY; Almine Rech Gallery, New York; Karma, New York; Loyal Gallery, Stockholm; and White Cube Bermondsey, London. Julien’s work is included in the collections of the Norton Museum of Art, Palm Beach; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C.; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; RISD Museum, Providence; University of New Hampshire Museum of Art, Durham, NH; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
@cheyennejulien
Photo by Shotti NYC
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Bony Ramirez was born in 1996 in Tenares, Salcedo, Dominican Republic. He currently works in Jersey City, New Jersey. His rural upbringing in the Dominican Republic, his first encounters with Catholic imagery, and his deep interest in sources as varied as Italian mannerism, Renaissance portraiture, and children’s illustrations reverberate within and around the fictional characters he creates. If each figure appears to be transposed into a changing theatre of symbolic surroundings and backdrops, it is the artist’s technique that renders this possible. Ramirez creates his heavily stylized, proportionally distorted figures on paper, and adheres them onto wood panels featuring idyllic, colourful backdrops of Caribbean imagery. As Ramirez’s characters, developed separately and simultaneously in oil stick, paint, and coloured pencil, make their way onto his works, so too do various other symbolic appendages. Ramirez uses a variety of objects which either complement the playfulness and idyllicism of his work, such as colourful beads, or contrast it by penetrating it with violence, such as real knives stabbed into the canvas.
Bony Ramirez has exhibited at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (Texas), Bradley Ertaskiran (Montreal), the Newark Museum of Art (New Jersey), François Ghebaly (Los Angeles), Bank/MabSociety (Shanghai), Jeffrey Deitch (New York), among others, and was recognized in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Arts & Style category in 2023, and The Artsy Vanguard 2021. His work has recently been acquired by the permanent collection of the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, as well as the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Newark Museum of Art, the Frye Art Museum, the Perez Art Museum Miami, and the X Museum in Beijing.
@bonyramirezz
Photo by XEVOLVEZ
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Working in the space between figuration and abstraction, mosie romney uses painting as a portal through which to explore themes of self-perception and polychronic time. A worldbuilder informed by a background in set design and puppetry, romney stages fantasy worlds that disrupt our notions of nostalgia, memory, the archive, time, the past, and the present. Recontextualizing images from a multitude of sources including family photo albums found on the internet, movie stills, literature, screenshots, dreams, and an evolving cast of characters continually recycled from previous works, romney tells stories of empowerment and explores life as a multi-performative experience. Using fantasy as a tool to grapple with realities of daily life, romney’s work conveys the emotional disposition of living in a society where contact across boundaries is constantly in variance. In their 2022 interview with Ben Fama in BOMB magazine, romney states “I’ve been thinking about visibility and its complications, the satisfaction and limited subjectivity of seeing and being seen.”
romney received their BFA in Visual Art from SUNY Purchase in 2016 and have completed residencies with the Home School, Hudson, NY; Pocoapoco, Oaxaca City, MX; Painters Painting Paintings, Amsterdam, Netherlands; and Mahler & LeWitt Studios, Spoleto, Italy, among others. Their work is in the permanent collections of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; Pond Society, Shanghai, China; the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; and the Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China, among others. romney’s work has been included in exhibitions at White Columns, New York, NY; Nicodim, Bucharest, RO, Los Angeles, CA, and New York, NY; Greene Naftali, New York, NY; Gern en Regalia, New York, NY; Almine Rech, London, UK, and New York, NY; Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, NY, among others. Their work has been featured in articles in BOMB Magazine, Hyperallergic, The Brooklyn Rail, T Magazine, and Juxtapoz, among others.
@mosie_river
Photo by Mary Manning
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Emily Manwaring was born in Queens, New York. As a senior in high school, she interned at The Studio Museum in Harlem where she immersed herself in the history of Black art and artists such as the works of Kerry James Marshall and Jamel Shabazz. Following The Studio Museum, she attended The Cooper Union to receive her BFA in Fine Art. Emily has since been featured in galleries and shows such as New Image (LA) Thierry Goldberg, Canada Gallery, Swivel Gallery, Cierra Britton Gallery,Venice Biennale (Italy), Arcteryx (Flatiron), to name a few. She has also been featured in articles for Artnet, JUXTAPOZ, It’s Nice That, ArtDaily, Office Magazine, Art News, and The New Yorker. She was most recently a visual arts resident at Abrons Arts Center.
“I imagine my life in the Caribbean and the celebration of my culture. There is a revolution, storytelling, prayer, and freedom within the celebration. I think about painting and sculpture in the same way a musical composition is formed or a dance that is choreographed. I look at the amalgamation of notes that creates a symphony in a composition. A blast of sound and different senses emerge from my work. The rhythm of a paintbrush takes a viewer into a world that has textures within its terrain. Dancing through the winds of the island and experiencing the vibrancy of the colors and joyous energies takes you on a journey. My work is an ode to the precious spirits of the celebration within the diaspora of Black culture.” -Emily Manwaring
@em.ill.e
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Quiara Torres is an Afro-Dominican self-taught artist from New York City currently based between NYC and the Dominican Republic. Her artistic practice incorporates painting, sculpture, installation, and musical composition. Through these mediums, she explores ancestral traditions of the Americas and Africa, challenging colonial legacies. Themes integral to her creative process include salvaging burlap and produce sacks, and re-contextualizing found materials into sacred art objects. Guided by surrealist ideas and intuitive interpretations, her work reveals symbolism through examining the natural world. She transmutes herself through animal & female portraits while echoing divine feminine iconography and other forms of spiritual tribute.
Quiara had her first solo show in New York City in 2018 at Five Myles Gallery and has shown internationally, including galleries such as Almine Rech, London, Shrine Gallery, NY, Meca Art Fair, DR, Focus Art Fair, NY, Wonzimer, LA, and Cantinca Tabacuru, NY. She has been featured in articles in Latina Mag. As a part of her community and curatorial practice, she also founded The Buena Suerte Arts Clubs residency in Santo Domingo.
@quiarat0rres
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TIEMPO DE ZAFRA is a multidisciplinary collective based in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic co-founded by Edgar Garrido and Stephanie Rodrigues in early 2018. The collective aims to decontextualize what already exists and its perceived value by utilizing what they have available, and through it sparking a conversation about our consumption habits. TDZ’s approach to excess and waste is to reimagine it, elongating its lifeline and presenting different ways of thinking about our waste. Posing the question, “How can we create value out of things that will otherwise be discarded?” Framed within a contemporary lens, TDZ works these concepts to provoke a sense of urgency, incorporating found objects, textiles, photography, and video. The backdrop to their work is the Caribbean, which they call home. A place that comes with informality and a reality that more often than not feels magical. Much of their work is influenced by their environment working closely with the community to speak about consumption and waste through a global perspective.
@tiempo.de.zafra
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 1-2 PM
Poetry Workshop with Kiara Cristina Ventura
We will draw inspiration from the showcased pieces featured in the Tropical Frequencies exhibition to create poems that explore the themes of family, home, and ancestral roots. The workshop will start with an introduction of the exhibition and brief meditation, followed by a free writing session. Participants will then choose a piece from the exhibition to reflect upon and craft a poem about. The workshop will conclude with a sharing session where everyone can present their poems.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 ~ full day of programs*
🖼️ Exhibition Walkthrough, 12:30 pm
🐚 DIDIDADA, movement workshop with Coco Villa, 2:30 - 4:30 pm
Conducted in a follow-along style and guided improvisation, it is a celebration of nonsensical play. DIDIDADA prioritizes accessibility and silliness to give your mind, body, and spirit a sparkly mega boost through a variety of multidisciplinary exercises. It is about catharsis, getting back into our bodies, and simply dancing for the joy of moving through hyper warm-ups, routines, and prompts. Instruction is inspired by Caribbean dance styles, dance fitness, somatic movement practices, and self-proclaimed rituals.
🌺 Tropical Frequencies Performance Show featuring mosie river, Embaci, duendita & Dominica Greene, 5-8 pm
The Tropical Frequencies performance show is an evening of sonic and movement-based performances tapping into the frequencies, including artists mosie river, duendita, Embaci, and Dominica Greene. Led by curator Kiara Cristina Ventura, this performance show will function as a happening that engages poetry, voice, sound, dance, and music. Featuring artists and musicians of Caribbean descent living in NYC, the performances encapsulate concepts around home, belonging, and celebration.
To learn more about all programs, please click here.
To RSVP to Sept 21 events, please click here.
For any inquiries, please email processaart@gmail.com
GALLERY HOURS: 12-6 pm on Saturdays and Sundays
LOCATION & DIRECTIONS:
The Arts Center is conveniently located on Governors Island and accessible by a short eight-minute ferry ride from Lower Manhattan to Governors Island, and a one-minute walk from Soissons Landing ferry pier.
The exhibition is located in the Upper Floor galleries on the second floor of the Arts Center.
Getting to Governors Island
From Manhattan
The Arts Center is accessible by ferries to Governors Island departing to and from Lower Manhattan. Ferries operated by the Trust for Governors Island run daily from the Battery Maritime Building, located at 10 South Street in Lower Manhattan. Our building is located to the right of Soissons Landing. Once you get off the ferry, the Arts Center is the first building to your right. See the ferry schedule here.
From Brooklyn
NYC Ferry serves Governors Island daily on the South Brooklyn route, with stops at Sunset Park, Red Hook, Yankee Pier on Governors Island, Atlantic Ave/Brooklyn Bridge Park-Pier 6, Wall Street/Pier 11, DUMBO/Fulton Ferry and Corlears Hook on the Lower East Side.
Tickets must be purchased in advance of boarding and are $2.75 each way or by free transfer from any other NYC Ferry route, plus $1.00 for a bike. Click here for the South Brooklyn Route Schedule.
For complete ferry schedules and directions to ferry terminals, visit the Governors Island website. Ferry tickets must be reserved in advance. All ferries are wheelchair-accessible.