The publication Raúl de Nieves: A Window to the see, a spirit star chiming in the wind of wonder…  accompanies the artist’s 2023-2024 solo exhibition at the Henry Art Gallery of the same name, curated by Nina Bozicnik, Senior Curator at the Henry Art Gallery, and Risa Puleo, Independent Curator. 

Throughout his practice, de Nieves uses humble, mundane, or castoff materials, refashioning and revaluing the commonplace to create dazzling new forms that animate the potential for evolution and multiplicity of the self. His densely textured works draw from personal and collective mythologies that often evoke forms of ritual and celebration. By fusing the aesthetic traditions of Mexican craft, Catholicism, the Tarot, the canon of European art, drag performance, and punk music, de Nieves mines enduring narratives for themes of self-actualization and rebirth.

In A window to the see, a spirit star chiming in the wind of wonder… de Nieves created an interplay of colored light and poetic prompts to guide visitors on a journey of continual transformation. An immersive, site-responsive installation that includes the artist’s signature “stained glass” and figural beaded sculpture, the exhibition is a portal to an alternative world, inspired by the power and possibility of wonder and imagination in daily life. 

The richly illustrated publication includes essays by both curators, installation images, de Nieves’s multi-stanza poem written in conversation with the installation, and three accordion foldout spreads with detailed images of the artist’s immense “stained glass” skylights spanning the gallery that illuminate a narrative of perpetual becoming told through images of colossal archetypes.

Paperback, 96 pages, three accordion fold spreads

Dimensions: 8 in x 10 in, vertical

Publisher: Henry Art Gallery, 2024

Designer: Summer Li

Printer: Shapco Printing, Inc.

ISBN: 978-0-935558-62-3