LILIANA BLOCH GALLERY, May 27 - August 19, Dallas, TX.

Liliana Bloch Gallery is proud to present a new solo exhibition by Myra Barraza entitled El Dorado.

The legend of El Dorado was inspired by the legendary recounts of a town in the Americas believed to be of great wealth, and stemming from folk stories of a South American indigenous chief who would cover his body in gold dust at Lake Guatavita in what is now Colombia. Spanish and English conquistadors set numerous expeditions in the 16th century, willing to die for a city of unimaginable wealth that was never found.

Barraza’s body of work uses gold not only as a metaphor but as a medium to convey a reversion of the colonial gaze through images of pop female icons and of Mercury, the Roman god of shopkeepers, merchants, thieves, and tricksters. Gold abounds in her portraits and gilded painting interventions, addressing the European savage looting yet highlighting the allure of the precious metal. El Dorado encompasses two- and three-dimensional objects that also are an ode to James Lee Byars, whose work, like Barraza’s, is imbued with elements of both history of art and philosophy.