The Parrish Acquires Work by Salvadoran Artist Jose Campos

The Parrish Art Museum received a recent gift from Mario Cader-Frech — “Chisme,” an installation of 15 woodcut figures of Latin migrant workers by Salvadoran artist Jose Campos, aka Studio Lenca. The life-size woodcut figures depicting Latin migrant workers will be the focus of an exhibition running March 12 to April 16 at the museum, alongside the annual Student Exhibition. Campos will lead art workshops with students and community groups at the Parrish and give a public talk on Friday, March 17, at 6 p.m.

Cader-Frech founded Y.ES Contemporary, whose mission is to create opportunities for outstanding Salvadoran contemporary artists to advance their artistic practice and engage with artists, curators, collectors, gallerists and the media within and outside El Salvador. Cader-Frech offered the works to the Parrish with the goal of augmenting the roster of Latin-American artists in the museum’s permanent collection.

“We are thrilled to receive this important gift from Mario Cader-Frech and honored to have Studio Lenca a part of the museum’s collection,” said Executive Director Monica Ramirez-Montagut. “This marks the very beginning of partnering with Y.ES Contemporary in an effort to showcase more artists from Central America, and El Salvador in particular, at the Parrish. The population of the Suffolk County is more than 20 percent Hispanic/Latin, and the museum is committed to having all communities represented in our collection and our programs.”

One side of the life-size cutouts in “Chisme” (“Gossip”) features Campos’s depictions of the migrant workers, now reimagined as monumental, joyful figures dressed in canary yellow, tangerine, or neon pink and sporting extravagant hats. Rather than toiling in obscurity, they purposefully take up space, standing with dignity and meeting the viewer eye-to-eye. Campos then completed the project in partnership with WeCount!, a membership-led organization of low-wage immigrant workers in South Florida who were invited to draw plants, trees, and seeds on the back of the figures, thereby bringing their lives and stories to light.

With this approach, Campos upends traditional roles by bringing typically ignored, overlooked individuals to the forefront: The figures in “Chisme” represent the antithesis of those resigned to live hidden from view due to forced assimilation or concern for personal safety.

On Friday, March 17, at 6 p.m., the Parrish will host the artist in a public program where he will discuss “Chisme” and share his experiences as an immigrant and artist. From March 15 to 19, Campos will join Parrish educators in leading a series of workshops for students from local middle and high schools, and families from community organizations including Project MOST and Whalebone Village.

Jose Campos (aka Studio Lenca) spent his early years in a corrugated metal shelter in Santiago Nonualco, El Salvador. Displaced as a consequence of El Salvador’s violent civil war, he is unsure of his official date of birth and family history. Among the first waves of child migrants moving to the U.S., Campos traveled illegally overland with his mother in hopes of joining his father and ultimately living as “illegal aliens,” working as domestics and laborers with no fixed address.

His preferred artist name, Studio Lenca, refers first to the studio as a space for experimentation and laboratory for practice. Lenca refers to an Indigenous people from El Salvador and central Honduras. In his work, Campos uses his work to address his own sense of belonging and defy the narrative surrounding his Latin community, manipulating and recalibrating visibly Latin cues to create a joyful world for an imagined flourishing existence. Collaged sorpresa wrappers, colones, cargo sacks, and indigo paste are used as triggers for collective reimagining. Campos, who has had several solo exhibitions, has studied Art and Design and has an MA in Arts & Learning from Goldsmiths University of London; and an MA in Contemporary Dance from Contemporary Dance School.

The Parrish Art Museum is at 279 Montauk Highway in Water Mill. For more information, visit parrishart.org.