Imna Arroyo
New London, CT
Imna Arroyo is an Afro-Puerto Rican artist whose work weaves the threads of heritage and ecological veneration into a contemporary artistic dialogue.
Message
Plegaría para una isla guerrera
La isla de Puerto Rico está representada por el Cemi, una deidad y espíritu ancestral del pueblo Taino y sus descendientes. El Cemi es apoyado por las manos de la orisha Yemonja, una devinidad de la religión tradicional yoruba. Ella es conocida como la Diosa del Mar. Dueña de las aguas saladas.Madre de los peces La que dio luz a los océanos, los orishas y todo tipo de vida en la Tierra. Yemonja es la Gran Madre arquetípica y primordial. Los Cemi representan al pueblo Boricua, los puertorriqueños, los guardianes de la isla, de sus montañas, sus aguas y sus habitantes en la isla y en toda la diáspora. Hacemos un llamado a estos seres divinos y ancestros para que nos acompañen a medida que avanzamos en nuestros desafíos actuales. Danos la fuerza para soportar la carga y tener la previsión de ver nuevas posibilidades en nuestro camino. ¡Enciende nuestro fuego creativo mientras buscamos el cambio para transformar nuestras circunstancias y forjar nuestro propio destino con inteligencia, gracia y amor, Ashe!
Impreso por Imna Arroyo y Lyell Castonguay en los estudios BIG INK, LLC, en Lewiston, ME. La edición de diez ejemplares de Plegaria para un isla guerrera fue financiada por una beca para Artistas de Connecticut en 2019.
Prayer for a warrior island
The island of Puerto Rico is represented by the Cemi, a deity and ancestral spirit of the Taino people and their decedents. The Cemi is supported by the hands of the orisha Yemonja, a divinity of traditional Yoruba religion. She is known as the Goddess of the Sea. Mother of fishes. Owner of the salty waters. She who birthed the oceans, orishas, and all manner of life on Earth. Yemonja is the archetypical and primordial Great Mother. The Cemi represent the Boricua people of Puerto Rican, as guardians of the island, of its mountains, its waters and its inhabitant in the island and throughout the diaspora. We call to these divine beings and ancestors to accompany us as we move through our present challenges. Give us the strength to bear the burden and to have the foresight to see new possibilities in on our path. Ignite our creative fire as we seek change to transform our circumstances and forge our own destiny with intelligence, grace, and love, Ashe!
Printed by Imna Arroyo and Lyell Castonguay at BIG INK, LLC, studios in Lewiston, ME.. The edition of ten for Prayer for a Warrior Island Project was supported by a 2019 Artist Fellowship Grant Connecticut
Puerto Rican artist devoted to exploring connections between the African continent and the Diaspora in an on-going endeavor to reclaim a lost and scattered heritage. Arroyo draws upon the imagery, symbolism and language of the Yoruba traditions of Africa to express a majestically complex and sophisticated worldview. In her multidisciplinary practice, she finds inspiration in the concept that art-making can be a ritualized form of healing.
"It is my intent to create Art that heals the deep-seated collective wounds of history, as well as to celebrate the vibrancy and relevance of a long denied ancestral legacy of self-expression", Imna Arroyo
Renowned scholar and Caribbean art and cultural critic, Yolanda Wood writes “… Imna Arroyo remains continually focused on those junctures where everything that is located outside the practices of hegemonic power, in the domains of the undervalued and subaltern, somehow meets. Settling within the space/time of these multiple references, she has inserted her own poetics based on life stories, autobiographical details, gender imprints, and the memories that inhabit them, all inscribed on the skin and in the reflections of the African subjects enslaved in times of modernity/coloniality and their descendants—which in fact we all are—and whose condition of existence the Barbadian writer George Lamming has identified as “a historical experience” in the Caribbean, yet one that certainly extends beyond the dominion of the plantations. From her migrant status, yet the bearer of a U.S. passport, Arroyo has succeeded in penetrating these silenced and hidden areas”.