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Christian Ruiz Berman: No shortcuts to Aztlan
No shortcuts to Aztlan is Christian Ruiz Berman鈥檚 first solo exhibition with Nicodim, and his first in Los Angeles. Berman draws from personal histories of migration and adaptation in his intricate paintings. His stylistic influences are wide: perspectives and the mood of Japanese ukiyo-e printing; the direct and tragicomic nature of mariachi ballads and Mexican folklore; and the confrontation of Indigenous, European, and Tibetan Buddhist symbology. He remixes traditions of abstraction, realism, and trompe l鈥檕eil into joyous compositions that teem with color and vitality. He draws from personal backgrounds in graphic design and architecture, his Mexican heritage, and narratives of adaptation and migration to create dynamic packed scenes. These guides support Ruiz Berman鈥檚 layered methods of working with abstraction and iconography. His work encourages viewers to examine what is exotic and what is commonplace, what is authentic and what is fabricated.
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No shortcuts to Aztlan is Christian Ruiz Berman鈥檚 first solo exhibition with Nicodim, and his first in Los Angeles. Berman draws from personal histories of migration and adaptation in his intricate paintings. His stylistic influences are wide: perspectives and the mood of Japanese ukiyo-e printing; the direct and tragicomic nature of mariachi ballads and Mexican folklore; and the confrontation of Indigenous, European, and Tibetan Buddhist symbology. He remixes traditions of abstraction, realism, and trompe l鈥檕eil into joyous compositions that teem with color and vitality. He draws from personal backgrounds in graphic design and architecture, his Mexican heritage, and narratives of adaptation and migration to create dynamic packed scenes. These guides support Ruiz Berman鈥檚 layered methods of working with abstraction and iconography. His work encourages viewers to examine what is exotic and what is commonplace, what is authentic and what is fabricated.
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In Christian Ruiz Berman鈥檚 singular painting God giving god to god (mapaches), a pair of agile raccoons offer a bouquet of unctuous, shimmering space lilies to an impassive stone statue, as another totemic figure looks on across interdimensional time and space.
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