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Lesley Heller Gallery is pleased to present new paintings
and works on paper by New York-based Cuban artist Manuel Pardo
(Cárdenas, Cuba, 1952). At the age of eight Pardo was
sent to the United States as part of Operation Pedro Pan,
which evacuated 14,048 unaccompanied children out of Cuba,
the largest exodus of children in the history of the Western
Hemisphere. He and his sister were placed with a family in
Wisconsin and were reunited with their mother, Gladys, three
and half years later when she was finally able to come to
the United States and moved the family to Tarrytown, NY.
Pardo’s current exhibition, “Stardust” is
an exploration into the memories of his childhood. Pardo creates
this work as a tribute to his mother and the sacrifices she
made for him, working 16 hour days in a factory to support
him. Pardo says, “Each piece I do is simply a portrait
that I call Mother and I. Whether in Technicolor or Single-Color,
it is a story of an immigrant woman and her son, and her unselfish
devotion to his survival, education and placement in the world.”
In this body of work, Pardo gives his mother everything she
did not have in real life: elaborate hairdos, fancy designer
dresses, and lavish surroundings, all placed in the time period
of his childhood.
Beyond this homage to his mother Pardo’s work probes
the meaning of memory. How do we live with it? How can we
leave it behind? What does it mean? He reveals himself to
us as a form of therapy that aims to establish a collective
nexus from an individual experience. This introspective archeological
dig is perhaps the origin of the works’ erotic, sensual,
sinful, obsessive character or the origin of its femininity,
its childlike wink, both elegant and grotesque.
Pardo received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New
York City in 1978. He has exhibited throughout the United
States, Mexico and Europe, including The New Museum of Contemporary
Art..
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Click on images
to enlarge
Manuel Pardo
single color, blue 2007
oil & pencil on masonite
Manuel Pardo
mother & i, oval, 2007
oil on wood
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