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Over a hundred artists have converged on MAWA (Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art) in the Exchange District for a new show with a wide range of perspectives united by colour. That new show is called Chroma, and it is a chance for MAWA’s member artists to sell their works and showcase the colours that inspire them most.
For Adriana Alarcon, colours represent a big part of her artistic and personal lives. “I come from a country that is very colourful – I come from Guatemala,” she explains. “I use colour in my work that is very bright. I use all the colours that remind me of home.”
Alarcon, who also serves as MAWA’s program and outreach coordinator, has been working on her contribution to Chroma for a year. The chance to exhibit her ideas of colour is what eventually pushed her over the finish line.
“It’s a very labour-intensive piece,” she says of her contribution which uses quills that she plucks herself from porcupines and then dyes in each colour that she needs. “At the end, I was kind of losing my spirit of finishing it, but this show pushed me because of the theme, because I thought my work would be really fitting for this show. So, I had to put it in.”
Alarcon notes that all of the artists responded to the colourful nature of Chroma with enthusiasm, making the process of arranging works on the walls of MAWA’s Cumberland Avenue gallery a difficult one.
“It’s a really good opportunity for them to showcase their pieces and showcase them together with artists of a high caliber or up-and-coming artists,” says Alarcon, “and they’re all mixed together, and they all blend together really beautifully.”
Audiences can see Chroma at MAWA’s Cumberland Avenue location until October 24. The gallery is open Wednesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with appointments able to be made outside of regular hours. For more information, gallery-goers are encouraged to visit MAWA’s website.