Ana González

Scott Pavilion
Riley CAP Gallery S8

Working across media, Ana González honors the extraordinary landscapes of her home country, Colombia. While celebratory, her work is also a warning call, shedding light on ecological degradation and the accompanying loss of culture and lifeways among people who reside in the country’s forests and along its rivers, many of whom are Indigenous. González’s Riley CAP Gallery exhibition continues her study of the effects of human intervention on the environment. The artist cites as an influence German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, who theorized in the mid-nineteenth that nature is a complex and delicate web susceptible to even the slightest disturbance. Such fragility manifests in González’s landscapes printed on roughened tarp. Unweaving the threads along the bottom of each textile, the artist transforms a portion of the scene into a ghostly rendering, reminding us that these ecosystems are vanishing in real time.

For this project, González turns her attention to gold mining in Colombia, a practice that results in deforestation, water contamination, and diminishing biodiversity. Over the last thirty years, the price of gold has soared with increased demand, precipitating illegal extraction throughout the country and placing pressure on local populations, particularly those living in poverty who feel compelled to work for the gold industry. González reflects on mining’s immense environmental impact and human toll in yellow-hued textiles depicting lush vegetation and waterways in the Amazon. She ties the contemporary thirst for wealth and luxury to the legend of El Dorado, a city of gold that sixteenth-century Spanish colonizers alleged was in South America. In evoking this fable, González proposes that the true value of the land lies not in its mythical treasures, but rather in its irreplaceable natural resources and intrinsic beauty. Alongside new printed textiles, this exhibition features porcelain reproductions of flowers native to Colombia and an ambient soundtrack the artist recorded in the jungle, enveloping visitors in the splendor of the natural world.

Pictured: Ana González (Colombian, b. 1974), CEIBA, 2025, triptych sublimation printing on roughened tarp, each: 117 1/2 × 59 1/4 in. (298.4 × 150.5 cm), overall: 117 1/2 × 180 3/4 in. (298.4 × 459.1 cm) © Ana González, Courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly, New York, Photo: Jason Wyche, New York