Perla Mabel‘s Morir Soñando (Die Dreaming is currently on view in Vernacular Glamour.
Vernacular Glamour brings together a cross-section of contemporary Latinx artists working with the visual vocabularies of camp, popular culture, high fashion, and baroque painting and architecture through vernacular idioms. Engaging the materials and forms of ball culture, advertising media, spiritual practices, and street art, the eight artists in Vernacular Glamour mobilize the artifice and exuberance of glamour to address the complexities of everyday life.
Perla Mabel is an Afro-caribbean multi-disciplinary artist. They were born in Boston, MA, and grew up both there and in the Dominican Republic. They deeply identify with their Dominican heritage, channeling themes of survival and recalling historical events and figures from their culture. Their practice reclaims their Blackness by incorporating satin fabrics used in rituals practiced in Santeria; they honor the people they paint by using the fabric as their canvas. Along with other fabrics, beads and objects in her paintings and installations in order to incorporate practices passed down from generations before them and throughout the African Diaspora. From reclaiming spaces of vulnerability and trauma to highlighting joy and resilience, Mabel’s portraits expand the possibilities of Blackness in art as a healing and empowering act. Now they are expanding their work into armor and public art challenging the ways in which their art can be accessed.
Perla’s Morir Soñando (Die Dreaming) can be viewed in Vernacular Glamour at the Kathryn Schultz Gallery until February 19, 2022. For more information, click here.
Perla Mabel | Vernacular Glamour Exhibiting Artist
Mabel received their BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Where they received the Springborn Fellowship and were selected for the Student Juried exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Their work has always broken barriers to create inclusion and accessibility to art. They have taken the initiative to create mental health days for Boston’s emerging Black LGBTQ+ artists at public parks and their backyard. Taking on the role of an art historian they teach others to explore ways in which art can allow them to express their identities. They were the first Artist in Residence at the Boston Arts Academy in 2019-20. Today they are the Lead Artist for the Community Initiative Arts program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Our ancestors left us tools, visions, and rhythms to remind us how to heal from within.
See more from Perla
Instagram: @arteperlamabel
Website: http://www.platanogirls.com/