Lesley Heller Gallery is pleased to present new paintings and works on paper by New York-based Cuban artist Manuel Pardo (Cárdenas, Cuba, 1952). At the age of eight Pardo was sent to the United States as part of Operation Pedro Pan, which evacuated 14,048 unaccompanied children out of Cuba, the largest exodus of children in the history of the Western Hemisphere. He and his sister were placed with a family in Wisconsin and were reunited with their mother, Gladys, three and half years later when she was finally able to come to the United States and moved the family to Tarrytown, NY.

Pardo’s current exhibition, “Stardust” is an exploration into the memories of his childhood. Pardo creates this work as a tribute to his mother and the sacrifices she made for him, working 16 hour days in a factory to support him. Pardo says, “Each piece I do is simply a portrait that I call Mother and I. Whether in Technicolor or Single-Color, it is a story of an immigrant woman and her son, and her unselfish devotion to his survival, education and placement in the world.” In this body of work, Pardo gives his mother everything she did not have in real life: elaborate hairdos, fancy designer dresses, and lavish surroundings, all placed in the time period of his childhood.

Beyond this homage to his mother Pardo’s work probes the meaning of memory. How do we live with it? How can we leave it behind? What does it mean? He reveals himself to us as a form of therapy that aims to establish a collective nexus from an individual experience. This introspective archeological dig is perhaps the origin of the works’ erotic, sensual, sinful, obsessive character or the origin of its femininity, its childlike wink, both elegant and grotesque.

Pardo received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 1978. He has exhibited throughout the United States, Mexico and Europe, including The New Museum of Contemporary Art.