FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Magnan Metz Gallery is pleased to present the second solo exhibition for Colombian artist, Miler Lagos. The Great Tree of Water will be on display from September 13th through October 19th with an artist reception on Thursday, September 12th from 6 to 8pm.
The Great Tree of Water examines the Tikuna myth of the great Ceiba, also known as Wone – a colossal tree that lived amongst the ancient Tikuna people in the Brazilian rain forest near the borders of Peru and Colombia. The tree’s dense foliage and copious thick branches created a world dark and veiled, hidden from the sun’s light and abandoned in a sea of shadows. As time passed and frustrations grew amongst the natives, two Tikuna twin brothers known as Yoi and Ipi took a stand and invited all of the jungle’s animals to overthrow the great Wone. It is believed that as the tree fell, its massive trunk sculpted what is known today as the Amazon River, its branches formed the river’s tributaries, its twigs created creeks and streams, and its leaves produced lakes and ponds.
Lagos will celebrate this sacred myth, a product of oral tradition, through sculpture, paper reliefs, collage and large-scale drawings. Nestled together in the natural sunlight of the gallery window are a cluster of tree trunks, each stacked with thousands of sheets of paper and carved into sturdy, organically shaped structures. Dendritic paper reliefs, both high and low, are presented on wooden tables lining the rear of the gallery. Along the walls are rich graphite works on paper (72 x 66 in) depicting the Selenga River and Ganges Forest. Each work exhibited in The Great Tree of Water will represent Wone’s vast impact on the Amazonian landscape and the legacy it left behind.
Miler Lagos (b. Bogotá, 1973) received his degree in Fine Arts from the National University of Colombia in 2002. Lagos’ most recent residencies include Location One, New York (2011), AB PROJECTS, Toronto (2010) and Gasworks, London (2009). He has exhibited in Biennials throughout Latin America including Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico and Brazil as well as the Philagrafika at the University of Philadelphia (2010). His work is in the Colombian collections of the Republic Bank of Colombia, Museum of Antioquia, Gilberto Alzate Avendaño Foundation, and in the international collections of the Ella Fontanals Cisneros Foundation and National Collection of the Puertorrican Culture Institute among others. Miler Lagos lives and works in Bogotá, Colombia.
For more information or images please contact the gallery at info@magnanmetz.com or 212-244-2344.