Borinquen Gallo’s Installation to Open at Wave Hill

From Wave Hill: Opening Saturday, April 8, Borinquen Gallo’s installation at Wave Hill, a public garden and cultural center in the Bronx, stresses concern for local pollinators and the environment. Inspired by the materials that we consume and discard, Gallo’s installations incorporate ordinary items, such as recycled textiles, cardboard packaging and plastic bags, which she reconfigures into unexpected combinations that resonate on a personal and societal scale. At Wave Hill, Gallo creates an imaginary hive interior informed by Wave Hill’s beehives. Using yellow, recycled, plastic bags and caution tape woven through debris netting, the installation lines the walls of the room and portions of the ceiling with woven, textured, black-and-yellow surfaces, as well as cascading flowers made of plastic. Beehive-shaped objects of varying dimensions hang from the ceiling like lanterns, containing dangling house plants.

The project highlights the need for enduring care of the natural environment, ultimately pointing to the apiary as a symbol of community and collaboration. Crafted out of debris netting, repurposed plastic bags and caution tape, Gallo’s installation issues a warning about the need to recycle, while blurring the lines between inside and outside, artifice and nature. In the spirit of teamwork engendered by the activity of a hive, the artist is leading a Family Art Project with Wave Hill’s visitors in April. Recognizing the increasing importance for artists of engaging with their communities, Gallo gives Family Art Project participants the option of contributing their pieces to her hive installation or of taking the work home with them to spread the word about sustainable living.

Gallo’s installation is the first in Wave Hill’s 2017 Sunroom Project Space program, which provides an opportunity for New York-area emerging artists to develop a special project or site-specific work to exhibit in a solo show.

Gallo earned a BFA from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and an MFA from Hunter College. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at Scope Miami Beach, South Beach, FL; Clio Art Fair, New York, NY, Governors Island Art Fair, New York, NY; National Academy Museum, New York, NY; Queens Museum, Corona, NY; and Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning, Jamaica, NY. In 2015, she participated in the Bronx Museum of the Arts’ Artist in the Marketplace (AIM) program and exhibited in Bronx Calling: The Third AIM Biennial. She is an assistant professor of art and design education at Pratt Institute and sculpture instructor at the National Academy School and Museum. Recent awards include a Percent for Art Program commission, the Sol Shaviro Award from the Bronx Museum, and a BRIO Award from the Bronx Council on the Arts.

Organized by Curator of Visual Arts Gabriel de Guzman, the 2017 Sunroom Project Space will show the work of, consecutively, Borinquen Gallo, Sindy Butz, Sonya Blesofsky, Jan Mun and David Rios Ferreira.

Photo courtesy of Wave Hill