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Review: “When the Children Come Home” at the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum

Review: “When the Children Come Home” at the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum

A picture of a mother holding her son.
David Antonio Cruz Puerto Rican Pieta on Calle de la Fortaleza2006; Part of the El Museo del Barrio collection, it is now on display in the “When Children Come Home” exhibit at the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling. Image courtesy of the artist and Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling.

Characterized by unique painting skills. David Antonio CruzThe artist’s sensual paintings celebrate the diverse facets of human relationships and emotions, located at the intersection of historical portraits and personal narratives. By playing with and subverting traditional portraiture, Cruz reflects the deepest “truth” of the humanity around him, creating a place in art history for queer communities that have long been excluded.

Cruz has recently had two significant exhibitions, including the just-concluded solo exhibition, “Come Closer Like You Used to Be,” at the Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago, and “When the Children Come Home,” which took place at the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling in New York City. York after making his ICA debut in Philadelphia last year. Both exhibitions feature works that reflect Cruz’s exploration of a broader definition of family ties, a theme he began exploring during the pandemic in his Chosen Family row. Unlike biological family or the bonds formed through romantic love, “chosen family,” Cruz explained to the Observer, is a supportive structure within a community, something that has become especially noticeable during the pandemic when people have had to “isolate from family.” It made him think about what family means in a world where people are increasingly displaced and uprooted. “They were really just a way for you to be present and love someone unconditionally,” Cruz said, referring to the unique support system that queer communities have created. “It is not about rules, gender, class, race or issues; you are my family because you are, and that’s the beauty of it.”

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Cruz sought to document these support structures that remain invisible to much of society but are critical to the survival of many people during difficult times. To convey this, Cruise’s compositions often focus on moments of physical connection that wordlessly reveal the emotional connections between his subjects. His work carries deep empathy, capturing intimate moments of touch, strength and support as a celebration of queer relationships. Through this lens, his art transcends specific themes and addresses the universality of togetherness without the need for distinction or classification. David Antonio Cruz’s personal, biographical and political works offer an intimate visual conversation about the universal feelings of love, support and comfort.

A painting of a Hispanic boy wearing a helmet and a small abstract painting. A painting of a Hispanic boy wearing a helmet and a small abstract painting.
Installation view of “David Antonio Cruz: When the Children Come Home” at the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling. Image courtesy of the artist and Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling.

Although Cruise’s works are masterfully painted in a hyper-realistic style, the process behind them makes their themes and underlying philosophy even more compelling. Participating in something of a social experiment, Cruise gathers his subjects in a living room, inviting them to bring with them people they consider family, thereby creating a collaboration between artist and subjects. In this tight interweaving of stories, personalities and feelings, connections emerge through clothing, accessories and expressions. Cruise then portrays his subjects in scenes of physical and emotional intimacy that celebrate human connections beyond categories. “There is such a beautiful intimacy in the world that is very important,” he said.

In these collaborative sessions, Cruise’s role extends beyond the consumptive gaze of the artist capturing the scene on canvas; its process requires genuine human interaction with its subjects, ranging from telephone conversations to personal interactions. As Cruise explained, this is important to building the trust that allows his characters to fully share their stories, naturally revealing their connections and celebrating those energetic connections between resonating souls through the power of art. With depth and empathy, Cruz creates human collages of emotion and connection, the result of a series of rituals of communication. “Sometimes I even cook dinners; I bring food,” he shared. “I feel like cooking can be a way to participate and celebrate, especially food, so I make it part of the ritual. This is how we say thank you, I see you, and celebrate this moment together. Sometimes after this we go out to eat. My process has different variations depending on the size of the group and the discussion.”

Installation view of “David Antonio Cruz: Come Closer Like Before” at Monique Meloche Gallery. Courtesy of the artist and gallery Monique Meloche. Photo: Bob.

All of Cruise’s films are fueled by a desire to present stories that too often go untold, celebrating unconditional love, connection and the joy that results, shifting the focus away from the drama that dominates mainstream media and balancing trauma with pleasure. His work thus embodies a necessary shift from memorializing violence to celebrating joy. Unlike his earlier works, which focused on strange people who were killed and forgotten, Cruise’s current work captures joyful, intimate moments with people who are alive and with whom he has deep connections.

At the same time, his work expresses a specific desire to claim a place in the history of art for figures who have often been erased from it. “I think about painting and what it does when I think about history and how it records time,” Cruz said. “Right now, I just think it’s really important to correct people in a way that, in this moment, we’re talking about a community that maybe isn’t discussed in a certain way.”

Installation view of people hugging and sitting together on a sofa. Installation view of people hugging and sitting together on a sofa.
“come closer like before” is an extension of Cruz’s line. Chosen Family series exploring non-biological connections between queer people based on mutual love and support, and centers this structure in the historical canon of Western art, especially marine and landscape painting. Courtesy of the artist and gallery Monique Meloche. Photo: Bob

His rich, sensuous use of color and texture further emphasizes how his paintings demand the viewers’ attention and demand space for the narratives they present. His work is rooted in the historical tradition of art, referencing his masters and genres in terms of pose, composition and the use of oil paint itself, but also consciously subverts the canon of Western portraiture by challenging its inherent preconceptions. According to Cruise, he “would rather play with the canon and subvert it than force the gatekeepers of art history to be given permission or an invitation to engage in a discussion of representation.”

The artist’s fascination with the human figure is deeply personal, influenced by his family background and the loss of all his family photographs at some point. “Photographs hold so much memory, and it’s very important to me to capture that time through an image,” he said. However, unlike a photographer, Cruise deliberately translates his scenes, emphasizing poses, changing clothing, and adjusting spatial perspective to enhance the sense of emotional and psychological connection. “I think a lot about how something is visualized next to something else… how it should be abstracted, how something occupies space, how it disintegrates and how tension arises between objects. From this, I begin to build a whole world around them.”

In staging these emotional moments, Cruise twists and manipulates his figures into acrobatic entanglements reminiscent of Baroque fluidity, deliberately altering classical poses in carefully choreographed spaces to convey a sense of dynamic, intimate interaction between his characters.

A museum setting with walls covered in gray floral wallpaper.A museum setting with walls covered in gray floral wallpaper.
When Children Come Home explores themes of home and reflects on the expansive definition of family connections through more than thirty paintings, works on paper, and objects. Image courtesy of the artist and Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling.

In the exhibition at the Children’s Museum of Sugar Hill, as previously at the ICA in Philadelphia, this staging of narratives also takes over and expands in space as the artist creates an entire environment between wallpaper and sculptural interventions that connect his personal memories with memories. about the communities in which he lived. The exhibition at the Sugar Hill Museum also includes his “B-side” works on paper, which further problematize the tension between representation and erasure, adding another mysterious and meditative poetic layer to the work. In these works, the first element to be decoded is always the interweaving of recognizable Caribbean vegetation, but gradually behind them some human presence is revealed, manifested and at the same time hidden in the threshold tension between concealment and disguise that essentially characterizes the strange condition.

After all, as the new works show, Cruise is interested in capturing not images of bodies or faces, but a specific aura. “When I start painting, a different truth opens up for me,” he explains, “It’s a more honest truth. It’s not about faces or eyes. This is your spirit. For me, this aura is the truth.”Ultimately, David Antonio Cruz’s paintings participate in a movement that elevates joy over trauma, celebrating the possibility of love, joy, and beauty beyond racial, sexual, and cultural identification to inspire universal human connection.

Similar to the ICA exhibition in Philadelphia, Sugar Hill Children’s Museum’s production of Cruz’s stories expands into the space, creating an immersive environment with wallpaper and sculptural interventions that connect his personal memories with those of the communities in which he lived. Children Come Home also includes his B-side works on paper, which further explore the tension between representation and erasure, adding a mysterious and meditative poetic layer to the exhibition. In these works, intertwining recognizable Caribbean vegetation is always present as an initial, decipherable element, gradually revealing traces of human presence behind them. This presence emerges and is simultaneously hidden, embodying the liminal tension between concealment and disguise that essentially characterizes the queer experience.

Ultimately, as these new works show, Cruise is less interested in depicting bodies or faces than in depicting a distinct aura. “When I start painting, a different truth opens up for me,” he explained. “This is a more honest truth. It’s not about faces and eyes. This is your spirit. For me, this aura is the truth.” Cruz’s paintings, in essence, participate in a movement that places joy over trauma, representing love, joy and beauty beyond racial, sexual and cultural identities, inspiring universal connection between people.

When the children come home” is on view at the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling in New York City until February 16th.

Artist David Antonio Cruz Celebrates the Joy of Trauma with Images of Human Connection