Hoesy Corona: Imaginary Construct
September 11 – October 20, 2019
Hoesy Corona’s uncategorized works draw from his personal experiences as a queer Latinx immigrant in the United States. His works oftentimes confront and delight viewers with some of the most pressing issues of our time. Recurring themes of race/class/gender, otherness, celebration, isolation, and the climate crisis are all present throughout his work.
Imaginary Construct is a site-responsive installation made using digital tools as well as hand cut black and white vinyl letters adhered to a clear substrate that deconstruct the word “white”. Making the invisible slightly more visible.
Imaginary Construct is a part of the ongoing series White Constructions, begun in 2016, in which Corona considers the arbitrary and deliberate construction of race in the United States and its negative effects on black and brown people. Insisting that the hierarchy of ones racial profile in the US is not innate, or natural but is instead a deliberate social construct created by the powers-that-be in an effort to subjugate non-white people.
Imaginary Construct reminds the viewer that language is alive, used to craft the world, and can be constructed or deconstructed at any given time to change the way we relate to each other. Imaginary Construct invites us to reconsider and reconstruct our personal, political, and national relationship to the faulty and dangerous notion of race.
About the artist: Hoesy Corona has shown compelling works and inventive sculptures fitted to the human body internationally in Greece, France, and in the USA at various institutional, private, public and underground venues including among others The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (2017); The Baltimore Museum of Art (2011, 2012, 2014); Athens School of Fine Arts (2018); The Walters Art Museum (2017); The Heurich House Museum (2018); The Peale Center (2016); Songs for Presidents Gallery (2015); Gallery CA (2015); Decker Gallery (2013, 2015, 2017); Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building (2018); The Brooklyn International Performance Art Festival (2014); Greenbelt Arts Center (2015); The Fine Arts Work Center (2014, 2015, 2016); VisArts (2013); The Creative Alliance (2015); IAU College(2005); and the Haggerty Museum (2005). In addition to maintaining a prolific studio practice, Corona also organizes nomadic contemporary art exhibitions in the U.S.A.. His curatorial efforts include: A Monumental Absence, solo performance by Najee H.F., Confederate Monument Plinth, Baltimore, Maryland ; Mother/Sister/Daughter, at The Artist Run Art Fair 2017, Artscape, Baltimore, Maryland ; Light Happenings pt II, Light City 2017, Baltimore, Maryland;Labbodies Performance Art Review 2016″, Spacecamp Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland, July 2016; “White Guilt Confessional”, Solo show by April Danielle Lewi,, Artist Run Art Fair, Baltimore, Maryland, 2016; “Borders Boundaries and Barricades” a Performance art review, Gallery CA, Baltimore, Maryland, 2015 ; “Blood Cube and Spitface” solo show by Emilia Penannen, Platform Gallery (2015); “The Multiplicity and Flexibility of the Self State”, Performancy-Forum-Quinquennial, Grace Exhibition Space, Brooklyn, New York, 2015 ;”Over|Under Limbo”, Transmodern Festival Baltimore, Maryland 2014; “Fast Forward Future”, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland 2014. “Rooms Play” and “Rooms Play 2”, The Copycat Theatre, Current Space, Baltimore, Maryland 2010, 2011.
Recent honors include a Tulsa Artist Fellowship 2019-2020; a Halcyon Arts Lab Fellowship 2017-2018 in Washington, D.C.; a Merriweather District Artist in Residence 2018; an Andy Warhol Foundation Grit Fund Grant administered by The Contemporary in Visual Arts 2017; a Robert W. Deutsch Foundation’s Ruby’s Project Grants in Visual Art 2016-17; a Light City public art commission 2017; an Ox-Bow School of Art Fall Artist in Residence 2017; a CHM Sculpture Park and Fellowship 2016-2017; a Light City Artist in Residence Winter 2016 in Baltimore’s Station North; a Cafe Con Leche Latino Artist Resident in Pittsburgh,PA Spring 2016; a Fine Arts Work Center Award; a Pelham Printmaking Residency;was a Janet and Walter Sondheim Prize Semifinalist in 2013,2015,2017; a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award 2013; a Baker Artist Awards B-Grant (The Copycat Theatre); and was included in Creative Capital’s “On Our Radar 2016.