This fall, the Gallery at Abernathy Arts Center presents “Caminos Compartidos” (“Shared Paths”), a Hispanic Heritage Month exhibition featuring nine artists of Latin American origin. On view through Oct. 30, the exhibition explores how heritage, ancestry, and migration influence art. Curated by Brazilian-born, Atlanta-based artist Carol Santos, it includes painters, sculptors, and installation artists whose work speaks to personal histories and a broader Latino experience often overlooked in Atlanta.
Santos says the title points to the balance between the individual and the community. “Each artist approaches their practice in a distinct way and explores subjects unique to their own journey,” she explains. “Yet what unites them is a profound commitment to sharing their cultural heritage and personal experiences through their art.”
“Traces of my cultural heritage emerge naturally in my work, bridging my current home in Atlanta with my origins in the Andes.”
‘Caminos Compartidos‘ artist Carla Contreras
Santos works across many forms and often collaborates with family and friends. She views art as a conversation that spans time and place—one that keeps stories alive and relevant. In ‘Caminos Compartidos,’ she connects nine voices from across Latin America to show that resilience, creativity, and belonging are shared efforts.
Ancestry and Remembrance
For several artists in the show, remembrance is their starting point. Their works echo family stories, ancestral ties, and the tension between holding on and letting go.
Monica Campana roots her practice in the women who raised her in Lima and the ancestors she calls her guides. “The art that I make is based on memory and identity,” she explains. “I keep finding myself making work that resembles art from my Peruvian ancestors, not because I am planning to do that but because it simply turns out that way.”
Patricio Marín, who grew up in Nicaragua, remembers molding animals from fruit and colored soil after rain and watching farmers’ “rough hands” coax life from the earth. “It was a life shaped by colors, traditions, and a deep passion for life,” he recalls. His paintings carry that sense of wonder, using nature’s colors and textures to honor resilience and tradition.
For Johanna Flores, who works in porcelain, ancestry is tied to spirit as much as to the past. “Within my practice, I explore themes of creation and the relationship between spirit and matter,” she explains. Her smooth, seedlike sculptures suggest inner multiplicity and transformation.
Landscapes and Belonging
Place—both remembered and lived—is another strong Caminos Compartidos thread. Several artists talked about viewing landscapes as sites of belonging, linking Atlanta to their roots across Latin America.
Carla Contreras, from Quito, Ecuador, grew up in the Andean highlands. After moving to Atlanta, she found comfort in hiking Stone Mountain during the pandemic. “Traces of my cultural heritage emerge naturally in my work, bridging my current home in Atlanta with my origins in the Andes,” she says. In paintings like Mujer, she layers textures inspired by mosses and lichens and references jewelry made by Ecuadorian women artisans resisting displacement.
Pedro Fuentes of Peru paints abstractions that avoid literal symbols. “My heritage appears transformed: I take the local and transform it into a universal language,” he explains. He aims for “emotional traces,” inviting viewers to see their own stories in the work. Sharing his culture in Atlanta, he says, means “sowing a presence, building bridges, and contributing to the artistic dialogue.”
Colombian-born Catalina Gómez-Beuth blends realism and symbolism to explore migration, identity, and daily life. Her canvases, she notes, “reflect on culture, identity, and the emotional inner world,” holding shared experience while making room for private reflection.
Resilience and Migration
A third theme is migration and how people adapt and persist. Several artists directly address displacement, representation, and survival.
Melvin Toledo, from Nicaragua, uses portraiture to challenge stereotypes of immigrants. His Stars of America series portrays friends, neighbors, and strangers in a dignified and luminous manner. “I wanted to change the narrative of immigrants being depicted as drug traffickers and criminals,” he says. “I wanted to show immigrants as human beings, neighbors, teachers, someone you might encounter on a run at the grocery store.”
Jessica Caldas, of Puerto Rican descent, combines drawing, collage, and performance to explore womanhood, migration, and care. Her move into fabric sculpture and installation, she explains, came from “a growing desire to tell collective stories at scale,” blending personal narratives with broader social issues.
For Carlos Solis, who moved to Atlanta from Chicago, migration revealed a gap. “As soon as I moved here, I noticed the lack of presence of Latin art in galleries and museums,” he says. In response, he founded Contrapunto, a collective of Latin artists, and has organized shows to highlight Latin American expression. His surrealist paintings, steeped in religious symbols and indigenous mythology, bring Venezuelan cosmology into vibrant, contemporary images.
Together, these artists show that migration is not only about loss or adjustment. It can also create new cultural presences—reshaping Atlanta’s art landscape in the process.
Caminos Compartidos is on view through Oct. 30 at the Gallery at Abernathy Arts Center, 254 Johnson Ferry Rd NW in Sandy Springs. Admission is free.
