Amidst Twin Suns: Alberto Checa

Join us at Oolite Arts on Wednesday, February 7, from 6 to 9 p.m., for the opening reception of Alberto Checa’s first solo, Amidst Twin Suns, curated by Jean Chung. During the opening, Checa will be performing in the gallery space in collaboration with Miami-based artist Nick León, alongside an archive of Checa’s recent works and site-specific installations.

About the Artists

Alberto Checa is a multidisciplinary artist who immigrated to Miami, FL from Cuba in 2008. Seeking to recontextualize the labor of the Latino working class within the American landscape through empathy, obsession and process, Checa utilizes abstract world building and DIY systems that reveal the exploitative and futile nature of the Brown body. Drawing directly from the Cuban legacies of object improvisations, and influenced by the writing in Con Nuestros Propios Esfuerzos, Checa engages with utilitarian materials – such as PVC pipes, water vacuums and plaster – as foundation to his practice, building structural and instrumental sculptures that later, when combined with designated garments and curated sounds, activates as performance. In these processes, Checa complicates the birthing of a “final product” while fulfilling a “function”, often an arduous task, bringing to light the hidden labor and futile loop that exists in the process of Capitalist modes of production.

Checa received a BFA from Tufts University and a BA from University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins. Checa has exhibited and performed both locally and internationally, including at Satellite Art Show Performance is Alive (Miami, FL), Central Saint Martins (London, UK), and Anderson Gallery (Boston, MA). Additionally, Checa was awarded Oolite Arts’ “Ellies” Creator Award as well as the Dean’s Research Award from Tufts University

Nick León is a Miami-based producer and DJ whose work is inspired by both Florida wildlife and the city’s ever evolving nightlife. León has produced for artists such as Rosalia and Denzel Curry, as well as a number of solo releases on various independent labels. He will be providing original music as well as a curated DJ selection for Alberto’s performance.

About the Curator

Jean Chung is a painter and writer currently based in New York City. Drawing from a queer immigrant lens, Chung works primarily around narratives of intimacy that arise from in-betweenness and opacity. Expanding on the idea of observation and research as an act of self and communal care, Chung’s practice stems from a diaristic approach that includes repetition and the constant translation between photo, painting and text.

Chung received a BFA from the School of Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University where she graduated with the Dana Pond Award in Painting. Her writings have been featured in Kolik Film Issue 39 (Vienna, Austria), Pilot Press Anthology (London, UK) as well in acquisition with Tisch Library at Tufts University (Boston, MA).