Christopher Grimes Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle in conjunction with the Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA participating gallery program, in which he will present a selection of works from the The Garden of Delights series.

The Garden of Delights is an early body of work made from the DNA samples of forty-eight participants – sixteen chosen by the artist, each of whom invited two additional participants with whom they would comprise a triptych. Manglano-Ovalle collaborated with a team of laboratory technicians to create the DNA portraits, which were produced as digital prints. While the series visually alludes to abstraction, it conceptually engages with 18th century casta paintings – paintings commissioned by Spanish officials in Spain’s American colonies, which depicted the different racial mixtures that derived from the unions between the three major races, Africans, Spaniards and indigenous peoples.

In contrast to the familial subject matter of casta paintings, however, Manglano-Ovalle creates communities of chosen relationships, redefining the idea of family, and effectively challenging the idea of identity both aesthetically and socially.