Immigrant defines a wordcharged with personal and political meaning. In the United Community Center, the Latino Arts, Inc. gallery presents an exhibition to celebrate the University ofWisconsin-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts 50th Anniversary with“Raoul Deal: Ni De Aquí Ni De Allá [From Neither Here Nor There].”
An artist in residence atUWM’s Culture and Communities program, Real immigrated to the States in 1998 tostudy and raise his family. In this exhibit, Deal portrays images of Latinos strugglingwith being here, in Milwaukee, and their hearts, there, in Mexico or LatinAmerica.
Hisintricate woodcuts meticulously detail portraits of the people who told theirstories during his research for the exhibition. The black and white woodcutscarve out images like the individual’s lives do, displaced in another culture.Te eventually create something beautiful with their life here, similar to thewoodcuts, which transform a clean wood slate into a poignant print on whitepaper.
Alongsidethe 16 large scale woodcuts and one wall sized installation of the stories Dealcollected, Deal mounts poems reflecting the emotions evoked by the prints.Ximena Soza’s poetry adds further dimension to the exhibtion and personalizesthe immigration debate, Often a long, painful p
