Ana González

Opening reception: Thursday, February 26, 6-8pm

Sean Kelly is delighted to present RÍO, Ana González’s third exhibition with the gallery. Conceived as a metaphorical river, RÍO flows through cascades, forests, and tropical jungles. Employing textiles, painting, porcelain, and video the exhibition conjures memory, emotion, and material transformation. Informed by indigenous cultures and their relationship to the land, water, and forests as living entities, the exhibition offers an immersive meditation on fragile ecosystems and the urgent need to re-sanctify the natural world. An opening reception will take place from 6 to 8 pm, with the artist present.

The exhibition opens with new works from González’s Devastations series, created from sublimated photographic images of rivers flowing from the Amazon and the Andes Mountains. Drawing on ethnographic understandings of forests and waterways as sacred territories of abundance and renewal, González physically unravels the fabric of each work from the bottom up, thread by thread. This act of deconstruction becomes a powerful metaphor for the slow unweaving of nature under increasing human pressure. In RÍO, González introduces two new color palettes to the series: a rose hue referencing the shifting light of Amazonian sunsets, and a gold palette that alludes to El Dorado and the mythic pursuit of boundless wealth. In her use of gold, González reframes the legend, suggesting that it is the region’s natural resources that constitute its true treasure. The iconic green tones, evoke both vegetation and currency, underscoring the tension between economic exploitation and the sacred value of life, echoing Alexander von Humboldt’s assertion that nature exists as an interconnected fabric, vulnerable to disruption at every point.

González’s paintings, drawings, and watercolors hover between presence and disappearance, dissolving into mist and drizzle like fleeting recollections of paradise. They chart a geography where interior and exterior worlds converge, transforming painting into an act of resistance and a provocation, to preserve what is sacred before it vanishes.

Sculptures in Limoges porcelain are suspended as a delicate cascade of heliconias and orchids rendered in luminous white. Historically associated with purity and refinement, porcelain becomes a poetic medium through which the artist addresses ecological fragility. Each sculpture embodies both resilience and vulnerability, revealing how beauty and destruction coexist within the same fragile surface.

A new video work further immerses viewers in the rainforest, capturing the ambient sounds of birds and flowing water recorded during González’s travels by boat. This sensory portrait foregrounds the unseen labor and lived experience behind González’s practice, reinforcing the exhibition’s emphasis on process, and presence. The exhibition concludes with a vitrine displaying small porcelain sculptures alongside travel journals, sketches, and objects carried by the artist on her journeys. Together, these elements form a mnemonic archive of observation and remembrance, bearing witness to the artist’s pilgrimage through threatened yet sacred landscapes.

RÍO is ultimately a meditation on loss and persistence, on forests and rivers at risk, yet still alive in collective memory and imagination. Through the sensuality and beauty of the tropics, González invites viewers to recognize the places of power embedded within the natural world and to reconsider our responsibility to protect the environments that sustain both life and the spirit.

For all other inquiries, please email Thomas Kelly at Thomas@seankellyla.com

For media inquiries, please email Adair Lentini at Adair@skny.com