W&L’s Staniar Gallery Presents Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz’s ‘Quiero Ir pa’l monte’ The solo exhibition will run from Oct. 28 through Dec. 13.

By Emily Innes
October 16, 2024

Washington and Lee University’s Staniar Gallery is pleased to present “Quiero Ir pa’l monte (I want to go to the mountains),” a solo exhibition by artist Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz. The exhibit will be on view from Oct. 28 through Dec. 13. Raimundi-Ortiz will also give an artist’s talk on Tuesday, Oct. 29 at 5:30 p.m. in Wilson Concert Hall in the Lenfest Center for the Arts, followed by a reception.

The exhibition and reception events are free and open to the public.

Raimundi-Ortiz is an interdisciplinary visual artist whose work pulls from 17th- and 18th-century European portraiture, comic books, sketch comedy, folkloric dance and installation to address race, bias, trauma and healing.

“Quiero Ir pa’l monte” is the result of a recent journey Raimund-Ortiz made to her ancestral homeland of Puerto Rico and inspired by the winding countryside road trips she took with her sister as her tour guide. The exhibit features large-scale charcoal and pastel studies of plants and trees adapted from photos Raimund-Ortiz took on her trip, and the physicality of marking and erasing invokes the process of learning the curves and textures of Puerto Rico.

The pieces in “Quiero Ir pa’l monte” strive to bridge the gap – both tangible and generational – between mother and son; they thread together narratives of joy, sanctuary, returning home and learning about the land of her mother so she can pass on the knowledge and heritage to her son. The exhibit is co-curated by Andrea Lepage, the Pamela H. Simpson Professor of Art History, and Kevin McNamee-Tweed, director of the Staniar Gallery.

Raimundi-Ortiz’s work has been featured in venues such as The Momentary, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Museum of Arts and Design, Garage Museum in Moscow (Russia), Orlando Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Gyeongnam Art Museum and Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, and at the Manifesta and Performa biennials.

Raimundi-Ortiz received her MFA from Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of Art and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

For more information about the 2024-25 exhibition and programming schedule, visit Staniar Gallery’s website.

Staniar Gallery is located on the second floor of Wilson Hall, in Washington and Lee University’s Lenfest Center for the Arts. When the campus is open to the public, gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, please call 540-458-8861.