Artists unite themes of past, present and future

“Cura - An Exhibition from Jose Lucero & Maryssa Rose Chavez,” will open Friday, Jan. 6, at CAV Gallery, 126 S. Main St. downtown, and continue through Saturday, Feb. 18, gallery owner Marcus Xavier Chormicle said in a news release.

An opening reception will be held 6-9 p.m. Jan. 6 at the gallery.

“Cura brings together El Paso artist Jose Lucero and Española artist Maryssa Rose Chavez to unite themes of past, present and future and bridge physical and emotional distance,” Chormicle said. “Through image making, sculpture and a variety of other mediums, the pair of artists play with the tension between what is observable and what must be felt.

“At the threshold of perception lies a truth that can only be comprehended through experience.

The exhibition addresses a truth known by our ancient ancestors and distant descendants; a truth that lives within us,” Chormicle said. “We see through the same eyes that they had and will have. Our truth exists on the periphery of others' understanding. Our truth is spiritual, metaphysical and emotional. The work holds space for those with a like mind and invites others to the challenge of comprehension.

What does it mean to understand? What does it mean to be welcomed? What does it mean to

withhold? What does it mean to do this for ourselves? To show a piece of ourselves? To present the

same truth that we previously only found in each other's eyes?”

Chavez has been an artist and photographer for nearly a decade, Chormicle said, with the focus of her current practice being in intervening, mending and healing in her ancestral homelands of northern New Mexico, Pueblo Territory (Española and surrounding region and tribes), through the use of alternative imaging processes and textile making. Along with her long-time partner, Adrian, Chavez resides in Austin, Texas (unseeded Tonkawa Land), and travels back and forth to Española to help and spend time with her mother and visit her family, who all still reside there today, Chormicle said.

Lucero is a multidisciplinary artist who focuses on photography, drawing and sculpture, Chormicle said. He is currently pursuing a BFA at the University of Texas El Paso, after ­years of doing portraiture across the borderland.

“Lucero has lived in El Paso all his life, which is a signifi­cant aspect of his artistic evolution and interdisciplinary practice,” Chormicle said. “His sensibility concerns itself with space and its relationship to the body. He uses the camera as an optical extension, in hopes of displaying the abstract and interconnected nature of reality.”

Contact Chormicle at cavgallery575@gmail.com.