Azul: Cuba / Alabama Reconstructing the Shared Horizon 

“Alabama, and Cuba, have only three things in common – the past, the present and the future. “ (historian Jay Higginbotham) 

The Azul exhibition offers a visual environment to experience the past, present and future shared legacies between Cuba and Alabama. The artists Karen Graffeo, Jose Betancourt, Susan Sechler Luss and Julio Larramendi collaborate in this installation which involves the viewer within memories and perspectives across a shared horizon.  

The artworks include large scale painting, silk mixed media photographs and multi-media works informed by the color blue not just as hue, but also as a conceptual structure to present poetically an art environment that reunites histories and experiences. Azul, blue is indeed the color of an emotion, and of the poetics of “there” seen from “here”. The works of Jose Betancourt, Karen Graffeo,  Julio Larramendi and Susan Sechler Luss embrace the conceptual experience of immersion within memory, heritage, waters, sky and history connecting Alabama and Cuba.

Please join us for the opening reception on Thursday, August 31st, from 5pm - 7pm in the Union Grove Gallery.

Gallery Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays, from 12pm - 3pm and Fridays, from 3pm - 5:30pm or by appointment.

An affiliated presentation and talk will be held on Wednesday, August 30th, from 5:30pm - 7pm at Lowe Mill A&E, Studio 1047.

Free and open to the public.

This exhibition is supported by a fellowship from the Alabama State Councils of the Arts.