The University of Southern Indiana’s New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art (NHGCA) is proud to present Survival Blankets: Learning from Ancestors, featuring paintings, sculpture and video by St. Louis artist Juan William Chávez.
Survival Blankets: Learning from Ancestors will be on display from January 20 through March 2. A closing reception will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. on March 2 with an artist talk at 3 p.m. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
Survival Blankets: Learning from Ancestors is a painting exhibition built upon Chávez’s Survival Blanket series. The paintings are drawn with ink on raw linen using dry and wet techniques that produce a variety of lines that flow with movement, as well as bleed and vibrate. A blanket is depicted within a landscape where plants, animals and sacred objects are carefully arranged and in dialogue with each other. Objects like Peruvian pottery, potatoes, mate gourds, and plants are seen with dogs, llamas, condors and pollinators.
Chávez creates an inner world for observations, reflecting and listening to learn from his ancestors. This series of paintings is accompanied by a video and sculpture that are connected to Chávez’s Native Bee Sanctuary located in St. Louis, Missouri.
Chávez is an artist, activist and Director of Northside Workshop. He has exhibited at ArtPace, San Antonio, Texas; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands; McColl Center for Art, Charlotte, North Carolina; Tube Factory Artspace, Indianapolis, Indiana; and Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri.
His work was included in El Museo’s survey of contemporary Latinx art, Estamos Bien – La Trienal 20/21 and Counterpublic Triennial 2023 in St. Louis, Missouri. Chávez’s interdisciplinary approach to art has gained the attention and support of prestigious institutions like the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, Creative Capital, ArtPlace America, Andy Warhol Foundation and Art Matters Foundation. In 2023 Chávez was announced as lead artist by Bloomberg Philanthropies’ $1 Million Public Art Challenge for the City of Orlando.
He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Kansas City Art Institute and a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
The NHGCA at University of Southern Indiana promotes discourse about, and access to, contemporary art in the southern Indiana region. The NHGCA is a proud outreach partner of the University of Southern Indiana.
This exhibition is made possible in part by the Efroymson Family Fund, Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana and the Indiana Arts Commission, which receives support from the State of Indiana and the National Endowment for the Arts.
