2026: Buffalo AKG group show
Super excited & honored to be included in this show alongside so many artists I have long admired-
Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way , curated by Andrea Alvarez, explores contemporary Latinx artists’ innovations and interventions within established traditions of painting, inviting discussion on a variety of themes and revealing the diversity and expansiveness present within the field. The fifty-eight artists in the exhibition—and those in the Latinx field more broadly—encourage us to interrogate the continued relevance of boundaries, from political borders to disciplinary confines. This exhibition therefore celebrates artists whose expressions are first and foremost personal and subjective, but whose heterogeneous and culturally specific interventions enrich one another and the history of American and contemporary art, two fields from which such artists have been historically excluded. Inspired by former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera’s poem “[Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way],” the show celebrates abundance and presents a vision of Latinx art that is, like the diaspora itself, infinitely complex.
ABOVE: “Hyphenated Nature: Northern Florida-Cuban Painting Relations (after Carta)”, 30” x 78”. (left & right are on-site , oil on canvas paintings & middle is acrylic & handmade Cuban soil-pigment on canvas (2020) and is my contribution to the “Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way” exhibition.
For years I have been searching for ways to hyphenate my perceptually based on-site painting practice with my conceptually based interest in connecting with the Cuban landscape and with the history of the Cuban artists who painted it. This triptych is composed of two Northern Florida paintings made “en plein-air” over the course an entire day at St Mark‘s Nature Preserve, which bookend an Albers-based square work that has an image of a Cuban landscape painted by using Cuban soil pigment. This middle piece is based on a famous painting “Las Malangas” by Valentin Sanz Carta that is in El Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana. I originally saw this painting on my first visit to Cuba in 1999 and was immediately drawn to it. I chose to use this piece as the hyphenation for my two on-site works because I saw elements in the Carta painting in each of my works. - The painting on the left was of a creek with tannic waters surrounded by dense vegetation and trunks leading over it. The work on the right had a sable palm that was similar to the ones in the Carta painting.
I created my Albers Square grid foundation by pulling colors from my on-site paintings and then repainted a section of the Carta work using actual Cuban soil, which I ground-up by hand into pigment. By literally superimposing “Cuba” (in the form of soil/pigment) on Western Bauhausian modernism, I embraced the modernist grid while simultaneously bursting out of it and rejecting it with the Cuban vernacular landscape, and in so doing found a new culturally and pictorially hyphenated space to paint.
The show’s intergenerational and regionally broad dialogue is reflected in seven thematic groupings: (New) Histories, offering new perspectives on personal, cultural, and global histories; Bodies & Figures, representations of and by marginalized people, considering the importance of the body, and who is or isn’t seen in an image; Identity/Place, a consideration of how identity and place shape each other with a diasporic lens; Land/tierra, varied approaches to land and the built environment, from the material to the imaginary; Community, highlighting various communities—artistic, blood, and chosen—and their importance to populations within the diaspora; Pinturx, contemporary Latinx approaches to traditional painting genres like still life and portraiture; and Abstractions, exploring centuries-long Indigenous and European abstract traditions still in use by artists today.
Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way is organized by the Buffalo AKG Art Museum and curated by Curator Andrea Alvarez. It will be followed by a national tour including presentations at the Des Moines Art Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, the Phoenix Art Museum, and the Frye Art Museum, Seattle.
In Nature’s Studio: Two Centuries of American Landscape Painting
This core show is organized by the Reading Public Museum, Reading Pennsylvania and augmented by landscape-themed works from the permanent collection of the Art Museum of South Texas. It runs January 22- May 3, 2026.
Works in the Reading collection combine early depictions of bucolic North American vistas—intimate forest interiors, sweeping panoramic views of natural wonders, and dramatic images of the untamed land and sea—with scenes of Europe, the Near East, and South America.
In addition to works by nineteenth-century landscape artists such as Thomas Birch, Frederic Church, Jasper Francis Cropsey, Worthington Whittredge, William Trost Richards, Hermann Herzog, and Aaron Draper Shattuck, the exhibition also examines the late-nineteenth century shift to Impressionism and Tonalism at the turn of the century by painters including George Inness, N. C. Wyeth, Childe Hassam, Edward Willis Redfield, John Fulton Folinsbee, John Mulhaupt and Robert Spencer. These movements captured the fleeting effects of light and atmosphere by employing new and innovative techniques including painting out-of-doors, en plein air.
Cumulative Nature: Layered View (WA) , 48” x 36”, oil on canvas, 2008 (in the permanent collection of the Art Museum of South Texas)
The expanded exhibition explores the progression from naturalistic depictions of pastoral landscapes to the stylized and individual impressions of time and place reflect the sensibilities of visual culture in the United States over the course of two centuries. The on-site (en plein air) painting above is my piece in this show.
2018: Columbia “Relational Undercurrents”
Other artists talking about their work that day are (from left to right) Lisa Soto, Anvil Gosine, Edgar Endress, & (not pictured) Carlos Martiel...also in picture below, curator Tatiana Flores and participating artist Nicole Awai.
2018: Cernuda Arte (Art Miami) “Made in Cuba/ Reconstructed Sights”
Cernuda Arte will be featuring several of my new works from my "Hecho En Cuba" & "Reconstructed Sights" series at their booth in Expo Chicago. More work from this series will be exhibited in my upcoming solo show with them that opens Friday, November 2. They produced a catalog for that show that includes an essay by FIU art historian Carol Damian.
2018: Frost Art Museum at FIU
2018: Widening Circles
2017: Art New York- Pier 94
2017: Joan Mitchell Foundation
2017: MOLAA
THE EXHIBITION IS EXTENDED THROUGH FEBRUARY 25, 2018.
Read an overview of the exhibition by Julia P. Herzberg in Arte Al Dia: http://www.artealdia.com/Pacific-Standard-Time-LA-LA/MOLAA-presents-Relational-Undercurrents-Contemporary-Art-of-the-Caribbean-ArchipelagoAnd additional articles:http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2017/10/29/10-best-art-exhibits-happening-in-l-a-right-now/http://artishockrevista.com/2017/10/17/tatiana-flores-relational-undercurrents-caribe/http://palaciomagazine.com/tatiana-flores/http://www.dailynews.com/2017/09/12/everything-you-need-to-know-about-pacific-standard-time-lalas-celebration-of-latin-american-and-latino-art-culture-and-music/https://www.molaa.org/exhibition/relational-undercurrents/
2017: In the Eyes of the Hungry
2017: Coral Gables Museum
I have two paintings in the contemporary section of this show and was asked by the curator, Segundo Fernandez, to talk about my works during his curatorial talk on Wed, Feb. 8 at 7:30. Show runs through April 23. http://coralgablesmuseum.org
2017: Dallas Art Fair
APRIL 6-9 @ the Fashion Industry Gallery, 1807 Ross Avenue, Dallas, TX 75201
2017: Relational Undercurrents Book
I am very pleased to announce my inclusion in and the release of Relational Undercurrents, a book published by Duke press that accompanies an exhibition curated by Tatiana Flores for the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, California, which forms part of the Getty Foundation's Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA. This initiative examines the artistic legacy of Latin America and U.S. Latinos through a series of exhibitions and related programs. This exhibition catalog and volume edited by Flores and Michelle Ann Stephens calls attention to the artistic production of the Caribbean islands and their diasporas, challenging the conventional geographic and conceptual boundaries of Latin America.This 352 page book includes 200 color plates and essays by the editors as well contributing essays by Rocio Aranda-Alvarado, Antonio Eligio Fernandez, Nicholas Laughlin, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, Jerry Philogene and Laura Roulet.
2017: Palacio Magazine (Relational Undercurrents)
Please listen to an interview I had with Antonio Ruiz of Palacio Magazine at: http://palaciomagazine.com/lilian-garcia-roig/
2017: the comma project
Comma, Vol. 1, No. 1. - GHOST OBJECTS [the box] - is a portable gallery showcasing a curated collection of small and atypical works by Carolyn Henne, Kevin Curry, and Lilian Garcia-Roig, housed in a hand-crafted box made from recycled plywood. The issue includes texts by Judy and Rob Rushin. -Edition of 15
Lilian Garcia-Roig’s Genus Roigia addresses the link between her work as a painter and the scientific research of her great-great uncle, the Cuban botanist, Juan Tomas Roig. Each piece is unique; made from one of Roig’s deconstructed paintings, her old paintbrushes, recycled leather shoes, and a polymer 3D print in a sterling silver bezel.
Comma is an annual, limited edition object collection, a curated collaboration of artists and thinkers from varied media, backgrounds, interests.
For information on purchasing or participating in a Comma Project, please visit https://commabox.art
First edition release date February 2017.
2017: Art Nexus
Very excited to see a great review by Carol Damian of the Relational Undercurrents show at MOLAA in the new Art Nexusissue No. 107.
My work Fluid Perceptions: Banyan as Metaphor is mentioned and reproduced in the article. You can purchase a hard or electronic copy of it at: https://www.artnexus.com/StoreSubscription.aspxor see a pdf of it on my website at:http://www.liliangarcia-roig.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ArtNexusRelationalUndercurrents.pdf
2016: Cuban Art in the 20th Century (FSU)
2016 Art New York Pier 94
2016: South Issue 124 in New American Paintings
2016: Thomas Dean Fine Art
A new 10 month "pop-up" gallery in Palm Desert, California opens the end of August.
https://www.thomasdeansfineart.com/artist/lilian-garcia-roig
Super excited and honored to be in this amazing group show of Latinx artists-
Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way explores contemporary Latinx artists’ innovations and interventions within established traditions of painting, inviting discussion on a variety of themes and revealing the diversity and expansiveness present within the field. The fifty-eight artists in the exhibition—and those in the Latinx field more broadly—encourage us to interrogate the continued relevance of boundaries, from political borders to disciplinary confines. This exhibition therefore celebrates artists whose expressions are first and foremost personal and subjective, but whose heterogeneous and culturally specific interventions enrich one another and the history of American and contemporary art, two fields from which such artists have been historically excluded. Inspired by former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera’s poem “[Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way],” the show celebrates abundance and presents a vision of Latinx art that is, like the diaspora itself, infinitely complex.
