Avocado no. 1 (Bodega Foods Series)

2020–2026

DESCRIPTION: Part still life and part cultural portrait, Avocado no. 1
transforms an everyday bodega fruit into an object of reverence.
Suspended against a luminous monochromatic ground, the avocado
becomes symbolic of nourishment, inheritance, and abundance.
The Bodega Foods Series draws from the artist’s childhood memories
growing up between Brooklyn and Harlem, where neighborhood bodegas
functioned as spaces of community, survival, and cultural continuity. Loose
change exchanged for plátanos, yuca, quenepas, and quarter waters
became rituals of belonging and care. In these works, foods tied to
diasporic memory are elevated through scale, color, and intimate attention.
Hand-finished with layers of resin, organza, chiffon, thread, varnish, and
paint pigments, the work becomes tactile and luminous, echoing
devotional objects and family altars. Split open to reveal both fullness and
absence, the avocado reflects themes of interiority, offering, and
transformation. The work asks viewers to slow down and encounter food
not simply as commodity, but as archive, memory, and living connection to
home.