Witness Trees

Lorena Mal, Gold Cup Flower

Lorena Mal

Witness Trees


Smith Gallery
On View: September 12, 2022— December 07, 2022
Opening Reception: September 29, 2022, 6:00 pm— 7:30 pm

Related Programs & Events

Lorena Mal: Artist Reception
September 29, 2022, 6:00 pm—7:30 pm
Artist talk at 6:30 p.m.

Rammed Earth Fabrication Workshop
September 17, 2022, 10:00 am—4:00 pm
Drop in to learn about rammed earth construction and to make a collaborative bench with Karen Poulain Jimenez.

Mexico City-based artist Lorena Mal will join us on campus for two weeks to create her exhibition, Witness Trees, her first solo show in North Carolina. Working in photography, drawing, and sculptural installation, Mal creates a dialogue between territories, specifically her native country of Mexico and the Southeastern United States, where the exhibition takes place. Seeking to connect rather than to divide, Mal explores the two landscapes through tree-drawings, botanical archives, as well as flowers and soil to approach a deeper past intersecting cultural, political and ecological traces.

Mal studied at the National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving “La Esmeralda,” National Institute of Fine Arts, Mexico. Her work has been widely exhibited internationally including recently at Centro Cultural Tlatelolco, CDMX; Biobat Artspace, Brooklyn Army Terminal, NYC; McColl Center for Arts+Innovation, Charlotte NC; Amparo Museum, Puebla; ESPAC, Mexico City; Palazzo Grassi, Venice; Skowhegan School of Painitng and Sculpture, NY; ExTeresa Museum, CDMX; Alameda Art Laboratory, CDMX; Armory Center for the Arts, California;  and Meinblau, Berlin. Mal is a fellow of the National Fund for Culture and the Arts FONCA (2018/2016/2011); earned first prize at the Transitio International Video and Electronic Art Contest (2013); is a beneficiary of the Research and Production Program in Art and Media PAPIAM (2012); and has been honored with residencies at McColl Center, Charlotte, NC; Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture; BB15; Wabi House; Art Hub Abu Dhabi; Cite Internationale des Arts; and Museogravida, among others. She lives in Mexico City.

View the exhibition here.

View the exhibition brochure below.

Exhibitions, programming, and brochure made possible by the support of the Herb Jackson and Laura Grosch Gallery Endowment, Davidson College Friends of the Arts, and the Bacca Foundation Visiting Lecture and Artist Fund.