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acrylic paint canvas
Not currently on view
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by an Anonymous Donor
Cristina Toro’s vibrant, fantasy-laden canvases are heavily influenced by her childhood in Puerto Rico. Her life there was filled with a menagerie of exotic pets and trips with her parents to the island’s rain forests. Her family moved to the United States when she was 10 years old, and she spent the remainder of her youth exploring the swampy terrain and indigenous wildlife of southern Florida. The central figure in The Invisible Life of Small Things may be interpreted as a depiction of the artist herself, plunging from the sparkling heavens above into a hallucinatory underwater realm below. According to Toro, the painting acts as a visual diary of thought made visible, especially as it pertains to her first year of marriage and time spent exploring the natural surroundings of her new home in rural upstate New York. While the surface of The Invisible Life of Small Things is entirely painted by the artist, the way in which she layers and overlaps her imagery and patterns call to mind the visual strategies utilized by artists working in collage. In fact, as the two works adjacent to this painting reveal, Toro is also drawn to collage and created a number of them that related directly to the museum’s painting.
Accession Number: 2013.56
Measurements:
Copyright Information:
NEPL Mint signed nonexclusive license with artist
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