Puerto Rican artist Félix Bonilla Gerena: For Lisa, a solo exhibition at Tripoli Gallery East Hampton, NY

PRART NEWS – Tripoli Gallery is pleased to present Félix Bonilla Gerena: For Lisa, a solo exhibition featuring new works by Puerto Rican artist Félix Bonilla Gerena. The exhibition marks the official launch of Tripoli Gallery East Hampton, and will be on view at our new 87 Newtown Lane location from April 25th through May 17th, 2015, with an opening reception Saturday, April 25th from 5 to 8 p.m.

Tripoli Patterson, the owner and director of Tripoli Gallery, first introduced Félix Bonilla Gerena to the East End in a 2008 solo pop-up exhibition in Bridgehampton. The following year, upon the opening of Tripoli Gallery on Jobs Lane in Southampton, Bonilla was showcased in The Mysterious Bajura. This new presentation—Félix Bonilla Gerena: For Lisa—will be his fifth solo exhibition with Patterson.

Bonilla’s love of beauty is conveyed through his depictions of the female figure, tropical flowers, and the cerulean sea that surrounds his homeland of Puerto Rico, and his distinctive brushstrokes fuse a forceful confidence with organic, curvilinear fluidity. His darker undertones—present in many of his works—speak to the paradox of life in Puerto Rico: a place of lush, natural beauty obscured by bleaker cultural realities; what is an alluring, temporary escape to some is home to others.

The late Lisa de Kooning, to whom this exhibition is dedicated, had encouraged Bonilla to further abstract his forms, and the resulting body of work—on view here for the first time—amply demonstrates both his aesthetic finesse and his fearless dedication to seeking new modes of expression within his canvases.

Born in Utuado, Puerto Rico, in 1968, Félix Bonilla Gerena began his studies in art in nearby Arecibo. He earned his Bachelor of Arts from the School of Plastic Arts at the University of Puerto Rico in 1992, and went on to study at the San Carlos University of Mexico and at the Autonomous University of Caracas, Venezuela. Bonilla’s paintings have been exhibited extensively throughout Puerto Rico, as well as internationally at the Museum of the Americas in Miami and the Museo de las Casas Reales in the Dominican Republic, and featured in noteworthy group shows in Philadelphia and Guadalupe. His work is also included in many international private collections, as well as in the permanent collections of the Museo de Arte Moderno in the Dominican Republic and the Museo de Arte Historia de Arecibo, Puerto Rico.

For more information please contact stephanie@tripoligallery.com or call 631.377.3715