Heskin Contemporary is pleased to present Mauricio Cervantes Ablutions and Bathers, opening April 19th and running through May 26th, 2012. A reception will be held for the artist from 6 -8 pm on Thursday, April 19th.

In Mauricio Cervantes’ recent body of work Ablutions and Bathers: a woman’s body is celebrated both as a site of sacred power, and of blatant sexual energy that is a force akin to spiritual power. In the same way men and women who live across thousands of generations on Earth are formed by the same genetic structure, the common ingredients: blood and water.

Performing one’s ablutions, the act of washing oneself, is a ritual purification that is a feature of many of the world’s religious practices. The aim of these rituals is to remove specifically defined un-cleanliness, especially prior to the worship of a deity. Much like the ceremonies and rituals alluded to in the creation of these paintings, blood, water, residues, cleansing, cleaning, all aspects of survival or rituals of biology, common ingredients across cultures and individuals that tie the viewer of these paintings, through the use of color and material, to ancient and active rhythms of existence that transcend the material to assess the spiritual.

Mauricio Cervantes lives and works in Oaxaca, Mexico. He has exhibited extensively throughout Latin America, Europe and the U.S. This is the artists’ first exhibit at Heskin Contemporary. In conjuntion with the exhibition “Ablutions and Bathers”, please visit Casa Mezcal Restaurant at 86 Orchard Street on the Lower East Side, where you can view more works by Mauricio Cervantes.

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