GUADALUPE MARAVILLA’S EXHIBITION, Mariposa Relámpago at Boston’s ICA Watershed was a dazzling arrangement of imaginative work. The exhibit centered on his personal journey of migration when he came to the United States as an 8-year-old fleeing the civil war in El Salvador. Several years earlier his parents escaped to the United States when in 1984, Guadalupe Maravilla was notified that a network of coyotes would guide him through El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala to Tijuana, Mexico to eventually reunite with his family in the USA. The arduous, physical journey took more than two months. Maravilla and other children were part of the first wave of undocumented youth to come to the US as a result of the Salvadoran Civil War. Although he emigrated when he was only eight, he didn’t become a US citizen until he was twenty-six.

Maravilla’s art is about healing, transformation and regeneration. Merging sculpture, painting, performance, installation and sound. Guadalupe Maravilla’s multi-discipline art practice is in rooted in his personal life story that is filled with trauma. However, unlike some artists who lose themselves in personal tragedy, Maravilla uses his past experiences to make art that gives rise to positive energy and a path to help others in need of healing. His desire to function as a type of contemporary Shaman calls to mind the artist Joseph Beuys who too associated intensely with how a shaman figure could encourage healing, renewal and transformation. Those themes were especially compelling to Beuys because of the horror of World War II, when a devastated society desperately needed to heal and go forward.

Above, right: Artist, Guadalupe Maravilla. Photo: Christopher Gregory for NPR

What one finds here is not an easy “breeze through” exhibition, but one that requires a viewer to slow down so to delve into this artist’s visual poetry imbued with personal nuances. Throughout his work he references issues about migration, the undocumented communities that he was a part of and shared their collective trauma, and his passage from Stage 3 cancer, that he had in his thirties, to his recovery. Maravilla strongly believes that the disease was brought on by the enduring stress of war, migration, and living undocumented in the US.

An eerie, haunting sound pervades the Watershed’s cavernous space filled with looming eccentric sculptures and paintings. On the far-reaching wall in the entrance hall of the Shed the work titled “Migratory Birds Riding the Celestial Serpent,” 2021, resembles a mammoth snake-like creature. It loops, curves and discloses an array of ragged materials and objects intertwined within a jumble of casing of maguey leaves and glue.

Left: Guadalupe Maravilla: ‘Mariposa Relámpago’ (2023). Courtesy of Guadalepe Maravilla and P.P.O.W., New York. Photo by GLR Studios & Eduardo Lopez. copyright Guadalepe Maravilla.

Being now an American citizen free to travel, Marvella often retraces his migration journey during which he collects countless objects left behind by others embarking on their perilous flight. These include toys, bric-à-brac and bottles of Lanman Florida Water used in Central America by people who felt it could free you from negative energy and purge bad spirits. This is an ever evoling work—for every time it is installed, it evolves into an altered piece because of the artist continuously incorporates new things into it. It is meant to be a metaphor about the ongoing saga of migration itself. However, it is not only about his migration but also emblematic of the desires and aspirations of persons who are brave enough to leave their country, and travel north in pursuit of a better life and to gain freedom in America.

The three miniature buses were an inspiration for the making of Mariposa Relámpago (Lightning Butterfly). The title of the show, “Mariposa Relámpago,” or “Lightning Butterfly,” comes from a conversation between the artist and his assistant Jesus Morales.

Maravella originally planned to buy a children’s school bus in El Salvador and to retrace the same route he took as a child. However, because of current immigration policy the original bus couldn’t travel outside of the country. In its place he had three replica models of the bus produced that were then transported by land to the USA. They are on display at the entrance to the show and are significant to the central newly commissioned work for the ICA’s Watershed. The three miniature buses were an inspiration for the making of Mariposa Relámpago (Lightning Butterfly). The title of the show, “Mariposa Relámpago,” or “Lightning Butterfly,” comes from a conversation between the artist and his assistant Jesus Morales.

Maravilla claims he has traced parts of his original two-and-a-half-month, 3,000-mile exodus about 30 times over the past seven years. During these travels he has stopped in cities and pueblos befriending shamans, blacksmith and ‘retablo’ painters who over time he’s hired to create the unusual art works.

“Although the Retablos are named after traditional Catholic devotional paintings and tend to evince a semblance to the Stations of the Cross their content is not religious.”

The eight “Retablos,” paintings spanning a long wall inside the cavernous Shed and are framed in netting made from tatty materials alike to a snakeskin. The casings functions as a type of protective barrier for the imagery depicting essences of Maravilla’s beloved memories. He began these in 2019, after a trip to Mexico. Although the Retablos are named after traditional Catholic devotional paintings and tend to evince a semblance to the Stations of the Cross, their content is not religious. He commissioned retablo artists Daniel Alonso Vilchis Hernandez, and Alfredo Vilchis Roque to paint vivid scenes portraying private instants from his journey that meld with visionary ancestors, and spirits of Mayan culture along with bugs, foliage and food (right). They are his visual story narratives from his migration, and are meant to inspire contemplation. A significant Retablo is of Maravilla’s arrival at a way station for migrant children in San Ysidiro, California, where a group of welcoming women fed and dressed them in a warm house filled with toys.

Above right: Guadalupe Maravilla: ‘Mariposa Relámpago’ (2023), detail. Courtesy of Guadalepe Maravilla and P.P.O.W., New York. Photo by GLR Studios & Eduardo Lopez. copyright Guadalepe Maravilla.

Stretching the entire length above the Retablos on the dark wall is an intricate drawing of a subtle network of lines inspired from the game of Tripa Chuca. Maravilla played this game with other children during his long migration. Each of the players draws lines on a paper that can never cross each other. What results is an extensive labyrinth or an intestine. The game continues to be pillar in Maravilla’s art—with the opening of each of his exhibitions, he always plays a game with another immigrant—it reminds him of his voyage.

The drawing is a collaborative work he made with an East Boston resident Jesus Morales, an aspiring artist, an undocumented immigrant and DACA recipient from Mexico. Maravilla claims that he frequently works with undocumented people to make his art because of his empathy with migrants and a goal to make those invisible, visible!

Left: Guadalupe Maravilla: ‘Mariposa Relámpago’ (2023), detail. Courtesy of Guadalepe Maravilla and P.P.O.W., New York. Photo by GLR Studios & Eduardo Lopez. copyright Guadalepe Maravilla.

Shortly before his M.F.A. thesis exhibition at Hunter College in New York City, Maravilla was diagnosed with a rare stage-three cancer and had to undergo serious chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Although these medical procedures were a means to cure him nonetheless he experienced painful reactions and sought alternative treatment. During this time he discovered Mayan healing practices of meditation and sound therapy. According to the ICA’s press guide, “Maravilla was introduced to sound therapy during his treatment for cancer and began incorporating gongs into his art in 2012. He studied gongs and sound healing with Don Conreaux, a celebrated Australian-American healer and learned how to produced different frequencies to target specific parts of the body.” Sound therapy was beneficial to Maravilla’s recovery and he has ever since created a sequence of vertical, freestanding sculptures titled Disease Throwers. The large-scale constructions are meant to be act as distinctive shrines for renewal from the gongs oscillation sounds.

Two outstanding elaborate works from this series include, “Disease Thrower #00,” 2023 and “Disease Thrower #0,” 2022 that are near the entrance to the exhibition. The enormous constructions are suspended from the ceiling—one is white and the other black. Each evokes a South American cultural sensibility because of the artist’s use of organic materials, lace and mystical dreamlike inventiveness. Anchoring the cascading array of descending ornate hammocks is a bed, made to function as a sacred space intended for the sick to lie. Gongs are within this uniquely framed space and its vibrating sound is intended to bathe the inflicted one with the hope of healing. Maravilla calls these rituals “sound baths”, during which people are subjected to a flood of penetrating sound. Throughout the run of this display Maravilla will hold free public healing sound workshops that are free and open to the public. I have read that the otherworldly resonant sound waves engulfed participants sitting or lying on mats, establishing a congruent, meditative space.

Guadalepe Maravilla: ‘Disease Thrower #14′ (2021). Cast aluminum, steel tubing, assorted welded details, 86 x 146 x 79″, Installation view of Guadalupe Maravilla’s, Purring Monsters with Mirrors on Their Backs, at MCA Denver. Courtesy of Guadalupe Maravilla and P.P.O.W., New York. Photo by Wes Magyar. copyright Guadalupe Maravilla.

The most impressive construction and centerpiece of this display, is Mariposa Relámpago. This fantastic, insect-like bus was especially made for the ICA Watershed and to date is Maravilla’s largest sculpture. Shimmering in metallic silver this titanic structure is devoid of seats and is alike to a display one might experience at a carnival. Visitors are welcome to enter its interior space and to explore its contents decorated with objects gathered from markets in El Salvador and Mexico. Atop of the bus are a miniature carousel, horses, camel, silver dragon and purple chair inspired by traditional Mexican furniture. On the ceiling near the vehicle is suspended sole mysterious white carousel horse.

The color purple radiates from the structure’s the inner core, interior upper wall and side decorations. Marvavilla has said when he underwent his cancer sound healing ceremonies he had recurring visions of a purple pixelated goat jumping around him. For him that color has come to be a symbol of hope and restored energy.

Left: Guadalupe Maravilla: ‘Mariposa Relámpago’ (2023), detail. Courtesy of Guadalepe Maravilla and P.P.O.W., New York. Photo by GLR Studios & Eduardo Lopez. copyright Guadalepe Maravilla.

Everything within and outside the bus has a special meaning to the artist. Throughout the structure there is a complex assortment of objects and symbols— a white anatomical plastic model, spoons, carved volcanic rocks, utensils, scarab beetle and butterfly winds and large gongs. From the rear of the bus a huge gong hangs inside the empty silver chamber, expecting to be struck.

This is an exhibition not only about sculpture, installation art and sound. What the viewer is presented with is an extensive experience. In an interview for Sculpture Magazine Guadalupe Maravilla was asked about his work by Rajesh Punj: “So, your sculptures are part of a complete experience that takes art and activates it. For most artists, the work is done when their works are exhibited; for you, it is only the beginning of what you need to do to make art “act.” Maravilla replied, “My recent shows at MoMA, the Brooklyn Museum, the Henie Onstad Art Center, and the MCA Denver were on view at the same time, so I had to fly to all of those places, activating the works and partaking in the ceremonies. I have a team of sound healers who work and travel with me. Before every ceremony, we meditate together and decide on who is coming—it might be the cancer community or, as happened in New York, residents concerned about a recent shooting. We talk about intention. When we are playing, we are meditating, and when we hit the gong, it sends out energy, which is an extension of the energy we are receiving. It is a lot of work, requiring a great deal of effort, but it gives me a great deal back; by the end, I am not tired but rejuvenated.” [1]

I encourage individuals to explore the inventive realm of Guadalupe Maravilla. He has produced work that invites people to think positively and offers opportunities for open-ended interpretation. In an era of extremes, hatred and divisiveness, this artist offers viewers spiritual renewal and therapeutic recovery. The curator’s at Boston’s ICA are providing audiences with an extraordinary opportunity to see art by an immigrant who has enchantingly transformed trauma into an uplifting practice.

Guadalupe Maravilla (show ended September 4, 2023) has produced work that invites people to think positively and offers opportunities for open-ended interpretation. In an era of extremes, hatred and divisiveness, this artist offers viewers spiritual renewal and therapeutic recovery. The curator’s at Boston’s ICA are providing audiences with an extraordinary opportunity to see art by an immigrant who has enchantingly transformed trauma into an uplifting practice.

Elaine A. King, Contributing Editor

[1] Rajesh Punj, “Healing Instruments: A Conversation with Guadalupe Maravilla”, Sculpture Magazine, February 14, 2023.