81C ST THOMAS - ART ON VIEW NOW

“Joy is survival. It is a radical form of resilience that keeps our communities alive.”
- Entes (Joan Jiménez Suero) 

Show Description:

Barrio Beats: Tales of Rhythm and Dance features new work by internationally recognized artist Entes (Joan Jiménez Suero), whose visual language moves to the pulse of diasporic memory, Afro-Latin identity, and the everyday rhythms of urban life. A celebration of movement, gesture, and community, this solo exhibition offers a vibrant exploration of how sound and dance become forms of connection, remembrance, and resistance.

Known globally for his murals and public works across the Americas, Europe, and the Caribbean, Entes brings his signature style—layered color, gestural forms, and textured surfaces—into a gallery setting with a dynamic presentation of paintings, sculpture, print, and mixed media. His subjects—figures in motion, neighborhood scenes, communal gatherings—express not only cultural vitality, but also the unspoken resilience found in daily life.

At the heart of the exhibition is Calle Ocho, the iconic Miami corridor reimagined as a symbolic crossroads. Through it, Entes weaves together the threads of Afro-Peruvian roots, Caribbean rhythms, and urban experiences into a shared visual tapestry. The barrio he evokes—both real and imagined—becomes a space of migration, memory, and celebration.

Curated by Odette Casamayor-Cisneros and 81C Arts, the exhibition positions movement as a universal language. In Entes’s world, rhythm is not escape—it is transmission. It is joy as resilience. It is the beat of belonging.
- The Curators, 81C Arts

Artist Statement:

“I paint, sculpt, and create from the street and for the street. My work grows out of Afro-Peruvian heritage and the urban landscapes that have shaped me—Lima, Miami, and every barrio where rhythm, struggle, and celebration coexist. These places are more than backdrops; they are living archives of memory, resilience, and collective imagination. What drives me is movement. Gesture, rhythm, and dance carry stories that words cannot. Neighbors gathering to share food, a grandmother evoking ancestral rhythms, youth improvising to reggaetón—each body in motion is both memory and resistance. My work tries to honor those everyday gestures, transforming them into spaces where dignity and joy are visible, tangible, and felt.

I do not believe that joy is escape. Joy is survival. It is a radical form of resilience that keeps our communities alive. Through layered color, texture, and rhythm, I aim to build visual worlds where that collective joy becomes undeniable.

This exhibition is an invitation to move together. To listen to the beat of our shared streets, to feel the pulse of diaspora and memory, and to imagine futures where we recognize ourselves in one another.”
- Entes (Joan Jiménez Suero) - Miami - September, 2025 

Curator's Statement:

In a world increasingly fractured by social division and global precarity, Entes (Joan Jiménez Suero) invites us to move together—reconnecting through rhythm, gesture, and collective memory. Through his Afro-Peruvian lens and more than two decades of visual experimentation, Jiménez constructs a contagious grammar of rhythm, community, and belonging. His work reminds us that movement is a universal language, and that collective joy can be a powerful form of resilience.

Living and working between Lima and Miami, Entes creates from the street and for the street. His art is rooted in the urban landscape—not only as a subject but as a state of mind, a repository of memory, and a horizon of possibility. Through painting, sculpture, print, and graffiti, he celebrates the complexity and multiplicity of Afro-Latin American identities while interrogating the structural inequalities that shape them. His layered surfaces, vibrant palettes, and gestural forms transform the everyday into scenes of dignity and resistance.

Entes’s visual world pulses with the vibrant gestures of everyday life: the cobradora collecting fares, men and women absorbed in their thoughts, dancers swaying to a music so vividly rendered that the viewer can almost hear the beat, and communal gatherings where food and sound become rituals of belonging. Each figure, each scene, holds the weight of memory and the rhythm of a people in motion. His work gives form to urban intimacy—an embodied knowledge forged through neighborhood belonging, shared resilience, and everyday survival.

At the heart of this exhibition is Calle Ocho (8th Street), the iconic Miami corridor reimagined by Entes as an allegorical space of connection. It becomes a cartography of transnational Blackness, where the histories of Afro-Peruvian migration meet Caribbean pulse, U.S. urban flows, and Latinx cultural memory. Here, diasporic stories, generational memory, and spontaneous celebration converge in a dance that transcends boundaries. The barrio he conjures—imagined, remembered, and real—is both deeply local and expansively hemispheric.

For Entes, dance is not performance—it is transmission. Each moving body—whether a grandmother evoking ancestral rhythms or a youth improvising to reggaetón—becomes an archive. His visual practice positions movement as both remembrance and refusal, a declaration that Black and Brown bodies are not merely visible, but felt, storied, sovereign.

This multisensory exhibition brings together a curated selection of paintings, sculptures, and mixed media works that span Entes’s evolving practice. Viewers are invited into a textured experience of layered color, sound, gesture, and memory—encountering not only the tempo of the streets, but also the spirit of communities long misrepresented or ignored. In Entes’s hands, rhythm is not an escape—it is the blueprint for reimagined futures.
-Odette Casamayor-Cisneros, Curator  

Artist Bio:

Entes (Joan Jiménez Suero) (b.1982 Lima, Peru) has been active in the visual arts since 1998. With a background in Fine Arts from Corriente Alterna, he is internationally recognized for his ability to transform the street into both canvas and classroom. His work has been showcased in nearly 60 cities worldwide, with solo exhibitions at venues such as ICPNA (Lima), the Centro Cultural Inca Garcilaso, Superchief Gallery (New York), and the Museum of Graffiti (Miami). His artistic journey blends Afro-Peruvian heritage with global sensibilities, offering an aesthetic that is as grounded in historical critique as it is in celebration. Across all media, his art affirms this core truth: beneath our differences, we share a common beat—and in moving together, we remember who we are.

Curator Bio:

Odette Casamayor-Cisneros, Ph.D. is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania specializing in Caribbean and Latin American cultural studies. Her critical essays have accompanied major exhibitions—including Mirror of the Mind (Espacio 23, Miami), María Magdalena Campos-Pons: I Am Soil. My Tears Are Water (Effie Gallery, Dubai), Queloides: Race and Racism in Cuban Contemporary Art (Mattress Factory Museum and Harvard University), and Afro-Cuban Legacies (University of Missouri). She has written extensively on artists such as María Magdalena Campos-Pons, René Peña, Juan Roberto Diago, and Gertrudis Rivalta. A frequent keynote speaker at leading art institutions—including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, and the Brooklyn Museum—Prof. Casamayor-Cisneros bridges scholarship and curatorial practice, centering Black visuality and epistemological marronage in contemporary art. As the 2025 Curator in Residence at El Espacio 23, she continues to develop projects that foreground Black diasporic perspectives and artistic agency. Casamayor holds a Ph.D. from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and has received numerous honors, including the Juan Rulfo Prize from Radio France Internationale in Paris and the José Juan Arrom Prize from the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists in Havana.

General info:
ENTES - BARRIO BEATS: TALES OF RHYTHM AND DANCE
On view at 81C through January, 2026 - 12-8PM Tues-Sat
Education / Field Trips / Youth Outreach = Inquire at 81CVI.ORG /  340 203 4030
Art Sales, Curatorial = Zack Zook / Joseph Hewes 81CVI.COM / 917 327 1561 

Artist information = entesdmjc.com / instagram @entesdmjc
Publicity and promotions = Zack Zook 917 327 1561 / zacharyzook@gmail.com 

General inquiries 81CVI.COM / 81CVI.ORG

"“Bringing my current body of work to St. Croix feels like a continuation of the conversations that began in St. Thomas — about creativity, technology, and the ways art connects our communities across the V.I. I’m grateful to 81C for championing that spirit of connection through their programs and for creating spaces where art can bridge islands, generations, and ideas.”  - Siyandi Matthias

SHOW DESCRIPTION:

“St. Thomas artist Siyandi’s full scale solo exhibition of sculpture installations and works on paper entitled analogous (uh·na·luh·gus) explores an axis of technology, creativity, and environmental impact through a multifaceted collection that contrasts old and new media, while questioning the concept of innovation and related consequential results. analogous argues for an advancement in conversation on viewer expectations, intention, and perceived meaning derived from contemporary Caribbean artists working at the edge of international spotlight. Siyandi’s breakout show stands to invigorate, inspire, and challenge an emerging art market straining for release from traditional formulas, delivering a dynamic range of interpretations, constructs, and dreams.” -The Curators, 81C, March 2025, Charlotte Amalie. 

Artist statement:

"At its core, my work is about exploration—both of abstraction and of the unseen forces that shape our world. My artistic journey began in childhood, sketching stick figures and imagined spaces, later evolving through a fascination with architecture and design. Studying interior design at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) sharpened my understanding of structure, but it was in painting and drawing that I found my true voice; one that merges formal training with intuition. My work now blends geometric abstraction with fluid, organic forms, creating layered compositions that exist between dimensions.

Growing up in the Virgin Islands, I was constantly surrounded by technology, working alongside my father as he installed networks, home theaters, and automation systems. This exposure shaped how I see the world—where information flows through unseen channels, and progress is built on systems both visible and hidden. These ideas naturally find their way into my work, where line, shape, and depth suggest movement between planes, much like data traveling through conduits.

For this exhibition, I’m using that perspective to examine the fragmented relationship between technology and its environment—particularly how discarded devices, once revolutionary, become obsolete at an alarming rate. I incorporate found materials, digital and traditional mediums, and sculptural elements to highlight this tension, inviting viewers to reflect on what we create, discard, and repurpose.

Beyond this show, I hope to expand what art looks like in the Virgin Islands. Too often, our creative identity is confined to depictions of tropical beauty, but I believe we can explore deeper narratives—ones that question, experiment, and push boundaries. My goal is to create space for work that challenges conventions, showing that Virgin Islanders can engage in conceptual, abstract, and thought-provoking art just as much as any other artistic community." 

- Siyandi Matthias, March, 2025, Charlotte Amalie. 

About the artist:

Siyandi Matthias is a native of St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands (New Tutu), whose artistic journey began with childhood drawings and evolved through a deep fascination with architecture and design. This passion led him to study interior design at (SCAD) Savannah College of Art and Design, where he developed a sharp understanding of structure, balance, and spatial relationships. Design thinking remains central to his creative process, shaping how he constructs and arranges elements across different mediums.

Influenced by Joan Miró’s The Melancholic Singer as a child, Siyandi’s work blurs the boundaries between two and three dimensions. His abstract illustrations feature fluid shapes and hovering forms, where shadows create an illusion of movement—figures and objects seemingly caught between planes, reaching for new dimensions.

As a multidisciplinary artist, Siyandi moves between illustration, photography, music, graphic design, and painting, embracing the multifaceted nature of creativity. His artistic identity, Abrokenglass, reflects this approach—constantly shifting perspectives, deconstructing and reassembling ideas across different mediums.

In recent years, his work has explored the intersection of technology, materiality, and environmental impact. His upcoming exhibition, analogous, examines the paradox of progress: how technological innovation shapes the world while also discarding its past. Through a mix of digital and traditional mediums—including works on paper, repurposed technology, and sculptural installations—he challenges viewers to reconsider the relationship between creativity, consumption, and sustainability. 

General info:
SIYANDI - ANALOGOUS
On view at 81C (St Croix) at The Farmhouse Gallery located within Prosperity Farm Distillery in Frederiksted through February, 2026
Education / Field Trips / Youth Outreach = Inquire at 81CVI.ORG /  340 203 4030
Art Sales, Curatorial = Zack Zook / Joseph Hewes 81CVI.COM / 917 327 1561 

Artist information = https://www.abrokenglass.com
Publicity and promotions = Zack Zook 917 327 1561 / zacharyzook@gmail.com 

General inquiries 81CVI.COM / 81CVI.ORG