About the Exhibit - Closed Game

I LOVE Farley Aguilar. Granted every artist or exhibit I take the time to write about I usually love, but Farley Aguilar is one of my absolute favorites. I wrote about his last exhibit at Lyles & King in 2019, but this is his first exhibit at Lyles & King’s new location on Catherine Street.

The exhibit is titled Closed Game and is on view from March 18 - April 25, 2021

“Dealing in clashing colors and collapsed periods of time, the artist intuits that reworking snapshots of the American past with painting’s tactile immediacy can reveal something about the state of the nation today” - Camila McHugh (source) 

Aguilar’s creates his large scale portraits from documentary photographs. He translates these figures in vibrant colors and patterns using oil paint, oil sticks, and graphite.

The exhibit features 10 works that Aguilar has created in 2020 and 2021.

“[The works are] all based on found photographs from throughout the 20th century, including, for instance, an image of the Scottsboro Boys from 1931 or of New York’s first Black police officer, Samuel J. Battle, ten years later.” - Camila McHugh (source) 

The gallery describes Aguilar’s works in this exhibit as “broach[ing] the painter’s position as one of ethical responsibility.” (source) 

He does this through the subject matter he chooses to paint, “restoring dignity to those who have been denied it and destabilizing the posture of those responsible for withholding it.” (source) 

It’s clear that Aguilar leverages his background in philosophy to create works that question society and our relationship to one another and the systems that we’ve built and are enveloped in. 

Video of the Exhibit

To see a video of the exhibit, skip ahead to 10:18 in the video below.

About the Artist - Farley Aguilar

Farley Aguilar was born in Nicaragua and now lives and works in Miami. He got a BA in  Philosophy from Florida International University in Miami. He’s represented by Lyles & King Gallery.  

“[Aguilar] has developed a distinct pictorial language, depicting tableaux of grotesque figures with unspooled gestures and a delirious palette.” - Create Magazine (source) 

“Aguilar dredges the psychological depth of James Ensor and Edvard Munch, as well as German Expressionist cinema and Existentialism.” - Create Magazine (source) 

He has works in The Bass Museum of Art, the Orlando Museum of Art, the Pérez Art Museum Miami and many more institutions.