Raúl De Nieves’ premiere exhibition at APALAZZOGALLERY, Who Would We Be Without Our Memories? grammatically implies a present conditional of a hypothetical future through the agency of the past. It purveys a poetic examination of the circular role of time in realms of cultural heritage, creative evolution, and personal transformation. Nostalgia combined with fantasy invokes the traditional craftsmanship of De Nieves’ native Mexico, demonstrating innovative methods in arts such as beadwork, costume, sculpting, and weaving. Like reproduced pages torn from a scrapbook, early works and DIY posters from the artists’ youth are refashioned into elaborate collages. The grandest of these, New Moons, presides over the atrium of the gallery correlating the courses of the past with lunar fluctuations.
