Over five decades of painting, Rocío García (b. 1955, Santa Clara, Cuba; lives Havana) has developed a distinctive visual language that draws from a diverse set of literary, artistic, and other cultural influences-from film noir and comics to Henri Matisse, Franz Kafka, and Havana nightlife-to explore shifting power dynamics in scenes both absurdist and (homo)erotic. The figures she renders in The Object of Power is Power exist at the margins of society and the imagination, caught within existential, seemingly irresolvable situations that darkly mirror systems of authority. Within them, her work creates spaces for humor and the imagined collapse of entrenched power structures. The work of guest curator and award-winning Cuban-American author Carmen Maria Machado is deeply resonant in its use of body horror, speculative fiction, and queer-feminist narrative: she brings an incisive and intuitive reading of García's work to the exhibition. Curatorial text (excerpt)