On Thursday, April 13, 2023, at 6:00pm, the Museo de las Américas [Museum of The Americas] in San Juan, Puerto Rico, will celebrate the opening of the new exhibition “Sin pena ni gloria: 22 years of artistic production of Aby Ruiz.” [“Sin pena ni gloria” may be translated as “It is what it is” or, literally, “without pain or glory]. The exhibition runs from April 13 to August 27, 2023.

Sin pena ni gloria (It Is What It Is) is a mid-career retrospective exhibition presenting paintings, drawings, and installations from 2005 until 2023. An exhibition organized by themes rather than in chronological order explores the different periods and the predominant themes of Aby Ruiz, one of Puerto Rico’s most acclaimed artists.

The viewer will have the opportunity to meet again memorable works by Ruiz, which have been previously shown in solo and collective exhibits, through which the artist explores media dimensions of assemblage and installation, to reinterpret the haunting themes of materiality.

Abismael “Aby” Ruiz: Painter, illustrator, graphic artist and creator of site-specific installations. Self-taught, he ventured from drawing up to projects in the advertising field. Afterwards, he took painting classes with Spanish artist Pablo San Segundo. Subsequently, from 2001 to 2003, he carried out formal studies in painting, drawing and printmaking at the Specialized School of Fine Arts in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, under the tutelage of professor and artist Roland Borges Soto. His work has been exhibited internationally, including the Dominican Republic, Brazil, United States, and Canada, while at the same time maintaining himself consistently active on the Puerto Rican art scene. Human figures of raw facial expressions are a constant feature of his prolific work, most often in disorganized and chaotic surroundings. His work reflects an expressionist character of social themes.

For more information, see https://www.lartban.com/exhibitions/15/overview/

Artist’s bio from https://www.mapr.org/en/museum/proa/artist/ruiz-abismael-aby