[Many thanks to Laura Galbán (at L’Artban) for sharing news about this exhibition.] “Bearing Witness,” an exhibition by Puerto Rican artist Marta Pérez García, hosted by Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center, at University of Maryland, is on display in the atrium of HJ Patterson Hall. It opened on September 15 and will be on view through October 15, 2026. Read description below and at the UMD site.

Description: Marta Pérez García began her series of sculptural female torsos, Restos-Traces, in response to the escalation of domestic violence against women during the COVID-19 pandemic. These myriad bodies–amorphous and skeletal, militant and maternal–honor the victims and survivors of gender-based violence everywhere but especially in Puerto Rico, where rates of femicide remain persistently high. “I think our survival stories are written on our bodies,” Pérez García reflects, and her torsos betray the psychic and physical scars of violence with intimacy and poignance. Constructed from handmade paper and inlaid with various materials, including metal wires, bones, and nails, the bodies both bear witness to the lingering trauma of their abuse and project new narratives of self-empowerment.

Marta Pérez García is originally from Arecibo (PR), she was trained as a printmaker at the Tyler School of Arts – Temple University (MFA). Ms. Pérez-García is recognized in Puerto Rico for her color woodcuts where she won a number of awards such as the grand prize at the XIII San Juan Biennial of Latin American and Caribbean Print in 2001, and where she exhibits in museums on a regular basis. 

For more information, see https://calendar.umd.edu/marta-p%C3%A9rez-garc%C3%ADa-bearing-witness and https://theclarice.umd.edu/events/marta-perez-garcia-bearing-witness-exhibition-opening

Also see https://nowbehereart.com/marta-perez-english/

#martaperezgarcia #genderviolence #lartban #contemporaryart