Marina Cruz's return to painting brings a new sequence to her investigation of remembrance and meaning. The objects in them form a kind of portraiture: she for example composes the dress then arranges them as one would normally a sitter. She transforms the thing (the actual dress) into an object (the painting of the dress), but retains the referencing and hinting to some fifty years past of back story.

From treasured heirlooms that serve as Cruz's well of inspiration; a focus characteristic blooms and from there begins diffusing the mystique upon her now orphaned objects. She dwells on the surviving artifact and leaves little trace of narrative in her portrayed "sitters," for she paints essence rather th...