Accretion

Like the pearl that forms from the accretion of materials over time, the works in this exhibition contain the aggregated experiences of the artists—women living and working in the States but with roots in Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru. However, unlike a pearl, their layers—comprised of earth, ceramic tiles, paint, photographs, stories, art history, and the artists’ own lives as material—neither are smooth nor conceal themselves. Weaving a rich tapestry of diverse perspectives, Accretion’s expressions of family bonds, immigration, labor and self-discovery draw attention to the intersected cultures, temporalities and histories that constitute the layers of being.

Homepage slideshow image credit: Deanna Barahona, Tia Sonia, 2023. From the series “Las Chiquitas.” Mixed Media, Inkjet Print, Acrylic on ceramic tile, grout, wood. Collection of Ever Velasquez.

Irresistible Ruptures: In Conversation with Artist Patricia Iglesias Peco 

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Thursday | March 6, 2025
5:30 – 6:30 pm

SBMA, Mary Craig Auditorium

As part of the programming for Accretion: Works by Latin American Women, exhibiting artist Patricia Iglesias Peco will join exhibition curator Lauren Karazija in conversation to discuss her philosophy and art practice. Peco’s large-scale paintings burst with color, imagining wild, natural scenes occupied by flowers, bugs and animals. In her dreamlike expressions, gargantuan flowers are neither languid nor gentle but monster-like, as terrifying as they are beautiful. Beneath their material condition, buttressed are ideas drawn from a variety of sources—personal experience, of course, but also psychoanalytical texts, poetry, art history. As of late, the artist has been occupied by the vast work of Uruguayan author and poet Marosa di Giorgio (1932-2004), much of which is only available in her native Spanish. Like di Giorgio, Peco fearlessly offers confessions from the bodies of women, not limited to sexuality but exploring a myriad of experiences—menstruation, aging, gender and power, violence, romance, friendship. These confessions present an explosive eruption of stories long silenced, suppressed, sublimated.

Patricia Iglesias Peco was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. After apprenticeships with Pablo Edelstein and Philip Pavia, in Argentina and Italy respectively, she moved to the United States to study first at the Savannah College of Art and Design and subsequently at the School of Visual Arts in New York. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

Opening Celebration for "Friends & Lovers" and
"Accretion: Works by Latin American Women"

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The Santa Barbara Museum of Art and Pacific Pride Foundation cordially invite you to the opening celebration for Friends & Lovers and Accretion: Works by Latin American Women. A performance by Mariachi Arco•Iris de Los Angeles, the world’s first LGBTQ+ mariachi, will open the evening’s festivities at 6 PM.

Mariachi Arco•Iris de Los Angeles!
Glamour Portraits by CherThisMoment!
DJ Suz!
Party Photography!
Cash Bar!