Freight + Volume is pleased to present an exhibition of work by Jorge K. Cruz and Elizabeth Insogna titled Divine Myth—Faith and Flesh. The show is composed of paintings and sculptures by two artists who share an appreciation for the sensual and spiritual through their lyrical undulating gestures, ancient mark making, and redefined color palette. They also portray a subversion of given truths as the exhibition intertwines their questioning of past portrayals of the divine and reveals the potential for
new embodiments.
Linked by religious symbolism such as the Madonna or Greek goddesses, the swirling compositions of Cruz and auroral statues of Insogna bring into focus the mythic through materiality and the body. Gesturing to sanctify space and investigate tradition, their abstract and impressionistic painted as well as ceramic forms blur the figure then imbue it with meaning. A process of transformation is delineated such as in Cruz’s Second Glory depicting a scene of unraveling enraptured women, men,
horses, and dogs and Insogna’s ψύχουσα τα πάντα (Ensouling all) alluding to empowerment with another soul.
Vivid paintings overflow with potency at the vanguard of a new history that is perhaps beckoned by the artist’s personal story—that being tied to a postcolonial nation as well as an antiquated art historical precedent of still lifes, hunting scenes, and religious imagery. Cruz’s paintings subvert the gaze, deconstructing archetypal figures and their surroundings. In the work The Shepherdess (After Manuel de Samaniego), the artist addresses religiosity with the representation of Madonna holding a lamb. With care, the serpentine brushstrokes create a warped effigy. This reinterpretation is an unfamiliar plane of color and form for the viewer to envisage representation.
Ancient Greco-Roman ritual, specifically the concept of τελεστική (telestikê) that invokes statues with living spirits, is central to Insogna’s sculptures. The vessels symbolize a liminality, offering a reconfigured way of seeing beyond traditional religious belief similar to how Cruz attempts to create a disjunction in images. Between one world and another, Insogna performs the act of sculpting similar to an alchemy of endowing with livelihood. Aphrodite on the cliffs is an especially poignant sculpture
portraying the goddess of love and elevates the feminine situating her to a place, the cliff, heightened and also on the edge of a precipice.
Cruz and Insogna break from tradition and reveal the metaphysical space of transformation by calling upon otherworldly beings to reimagine common paradigms of the divine and freeing their subjects of models and patterns of the past. Their visual mnemonics address the changing autobiographies of human existence, the grand narratives that have been passed through generations yet are shaped by topical desires.
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Jorge K. Cruz (b. 1995, Guayaquil, Ecuador) lives and works in Queens, NY. His work was included in group exhibitions such as Breakthrough at James Fuentes, New York, NY (2023), and Figurative Impressions at Hurst Contemporary, London, UK (2024). Cruz participated in the Tracey Emin Artist Residency, Margate, Kent, England (2023– 24), and his work has been featured in Artnet News and FAD Magazine.
Elizabeth Insogna (b. 1980, New York, NY) received her MFA from Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY, and her BFA in Sculpture from SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY. Her work, which spans ceramic sculpture, installation, and ritual performance, has appeared in solo and two-person exhibitions at Tappeto Volante Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2024); FiveMyles, Brooklyn, NY (2022); Underdonk, Brooklyn, NY (2022); and RAR Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2013). She has also been included in group exhibitions at Bill Arning Exhibitions, Kinderhook, NY (2024); Field of Play Gallery, New York, NY (2023); and The National Arts Club, New York, NY (2021). Her work has been featured in The Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, Two Coats of Paint, Artsy, and Huffington Post. Insogna lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.