February 17–June 9, 2024
Curated by Alexander Jarman, Assistant Curator of Exhibitions and Academic Outreach
René Treviño’s first museum survey features over two hundred artworks from 2008 to the present, including new work created on the occasion of this exhibition. Treviño’s multidisciplinary practice encompasses a range of mediums and reflects personal inspirations as well as the artist’s research into Maya and Aztec history, Catholic symbolism, astronomy, pop culture, and queer theory to recast his heritage and identity in a new light.
Recent explorations into sculpture have resulted in a suite of courtly robes embellished with faux jaguar fur and sequined patches, displayed with Aztec-inspired, feather headdresses and presented on a custom-built stage.
Also debuting in Stab of Guilt are twenty mixed-media collages collectively titled Sunspots by Day, Asteroids by Night (2023), which incorporate imagery from nineteenth-century star charts made by C. H. F. Peters, Hamilton College’s first professor of astronomy. The series builds upon paintings in which Treviño merges historical Western views of the heavens with scientific perspectives of the Maya and Aztecs and his own idiosyncratic naming conventions.
Other works include a grid of paintings comprised of circular images that, taken together, point to our commonalities across geography and cultures—ancient Aztec glyphs sit comfortably next to depictions of Greek pottery and Indigenous American folk art—as well as embellished paintings on leather, based on ancient codices and featuring a mashup of queer and Mesoamerican imagery. René Treviño: Stab of Guilt brings together an exuberant selection of works with wide-ranging themes that illuminate the artist’s colorful and complex aesthetic.
René Treviño (b. 1972, Kingsville, Texas) lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland. His work has been exhibited at the Arlington Arts Center (Virginia), Baltimore Museum of Art, Delaware Center for Contemporary Art (Wilmington), Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture (Baltimore), Pentimenti Gallery (Philadelphia), Wadsworth Atheneum (Hartford, CT), and White Box (New York City). Treviño is a Rubys Artist Grantee and a recipient of the Baltimore Creative Fund Individual Artist Grant and the Trawick Prize. He has been an artist in residence at AIR Serenbe (Serenbe, GA), the Creative Alliance (Baltimore), and the Fine Arts Work Center (Provincetown, MA). Treviño holds a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.
