Desi Swoope Stitches the Past and Present in "Abuela's House"

In a city that tends to discard its past in favor of the shiny, the new, and, let's face it, the white-washed, it's easy to feel adrift in Miami's constant sea of change. If you were to ask multimedia artist Destyni "Desi" Swoope how she stays rooted in the Magic City's ever-shifting sands, she'd tell you never to forget the places and people from which you were created because those memories and building blocks never change nor leave you — as long as you honor them.

A solo exhibition of 15 mixed-media works on canvas sees Desi Swoope stitch together her past and present in order to guide her future, keeping family, culture, and heritage in the foreground. Hosted by Supermarket Gallery, "Abuela's House" opens on Saturday, September 14, at Grand Opening Gallery in Wynwood.

Swoope's works utilize mixed media, acrylic paint, and hand-sewn found fabrics, a combination that innately draws viewers closer to the canvas to get lost in the portrait or landscape. Swoope credits her great-grandmother with inspiring her artistic techniques and helping her realize her creative potential.

"As an artist growing into my own style and trying to single out what's important to me, I always come back to my roots, where I first saw all the things I'm attracted to, whether it's a stitch pattern, a certain type of yarn, a texture, a color, or a pattern," Swoope says. "I first saw these at my abuela's house. To this day, she's still creating these things in her house."

Reminiscing on a childhood spent watching her abuela in the act of artistic expression motivated Swoope — who was born to a Puerto Rican-American mother and a Bahamian and African-American father — to dig even deeper in order to develop the ethos guiding the creation of "Abuela's House."

"When I looked at the building blocks of who I am and asked myself, why does this color make me feel this way, or why does this pattern stick out more than all others, everything kept coming back to my childhood memories with my great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my mother. Then I asked myself why are these memories top of mind? It's not like I haven't seen anything else. But when I go back and look at my abuela's roots, I find an entire culture, a heritage, stories," Swoope says.

"We're living in such a fast-paced world that we don't often have moments when we're like, Okay, let me run it back."

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"We're living in such a fast-paced world that we don't often have moments when we're like, Okay, let me run it back. I see all the ways that I got here, but let me look back even further. I can be the first person to acknowledge my traumas and what I'm healing over, but let me also acknowledge the things that made me strong. Why am I so kind and loving? Why am I so vibrant? Why is family so important to me? We sometimes forget to acknowledge all the beautiful things that make us who we are as well. I think it's important to always connect to that, preserve it, and make it a priority not to forget."

If you suspend your imagination just slightly, Papi and Abuela's Anniversary is a work that reaches out from the wall to offer you handfuls of flowers and colorful rosary beads. The piece is an homage to a photograph capturing Swoope's grandmother and grandfather as they renewed their marriage vows in their church in Puerto Rico many years ago. Though the figures in the foreground don't feature complete faces, there's a clear sense of joy, togetherness, and the kind of calm that accompanies true partnership that emanates from the canvas.

"Obviously, I wasn't there, but when I look at the photos from my grandparents' vow-renewal ceremony, I can just imagine how beautiful of a moment that was. At that point, they were still living so happily on their island, in their home that they built on their own land, rooted in their heritage and culture and surrounded by other people who wanted to acknowledge such a beautiful thing in their life. I wish I could've been a fly on the wall for that moment," Swoope adds.

Picking a Path

"Abuela's House" is Swoope's debut solo exhibition, an achievement that would have sounded purely fantastical to her in her earliest years. Growing up in Port St. Lucie and Fort Pierce, coastal suburbs about two hours north of Miami, Swoope didn't see many examples of artists forging a career through their creations, but that didn't mean she wasn't surrounded by artistry at every turn.

"For most of my life, I didn't know that being an artist was an actual profession. I only saw it in movies and TV shows, and I was like, Oh, that's cool, but it's probably not real. I didn't know any professional artists doing what I do now," she recalls. "My grandmother was my inspiration, but even then, she always called it her little crafts, her hobbies, or things she would do that brought her peace or joy. I saw her creative abilities, and I saw mine. I thought they were just cool things that I could do and that my brother and my uncle could do, but everyone still had other jobs."

After letting go of childhood dreams to pursue professional basketball, Swoope studied to enter the medical profession after high school. Still, even though she knew she wanted a career in which she'd help others, she wasn't sold on medicine. As Swoope found herself at a crossroads, her uncle posed a question that would alter her life forever.
"He was like, 'Well, how do you feel about going to school for art?' And I was like, 'What?' During that period of time, I was painting on people's clothes, shoes, suitcases, even cars, and creating characters on small canvases for money on the side," Swoope says. "My mom, dad, and I did a deep dive into art schools, and that's when I found the Art Institute of Miami."

As a student at the Art Institute of Miami, Swoope landed commercial art collaborations with corporate giants like Nike, Footlocker, Clarks, and Anta Sports. After graduating, Swoope dove headfirst into pursuing a career in the fine arts, and it was when Zee Lopez Del Carmen — a Miami-based curator, cultural researcher, and facilitator — paid a visit to her studio that the seed of the idea for "Abuela's House" began to sprout.

"I walk away from Desi's work with such a deep sense of love for connection and for community. After my first two conversations with Desi, I started asking my grandparents questions," says Lopez del Carmen. "I took a picture of my grandmother when she was laughing and sitting on her rocking chair because this is something that I take for granted. I've seen this every day for the last 29 years. Yet, when I saw Desi's work and the way she talked about preserving history and understanding those things that make us who we are, it made me need — not want — to take a picture in that moment, print it, and keep it on my desk. Desi's work helps me create altars to my family's memory."

Perfect Setting

Grand Opening Gallery's location in Wynwood, a former Puerto Rican stronghold whose previous identity has been nearly gentrified out of existence, is in direct conversation with Swoope's themes of cultural preservation and safeguarding tradition, says Lopez del Carmen.

"In the text accompanying the exhibition, Desi said she wanted us to pick our story, ourselves, and our histories over and over again. We felt there was intentionality to talking about an almost quieted history," Lopez del Carmen explains. "The Wynwood of my childhood was the Wynwood where my family, who came to the United States from the Dominican Republic, would go to buy fabrics and clothes. I remember walking those streets as a child, seeing the hustle and bustle, and feeling like, Oh my God, the streets of Wynwood are just like a market back home in the Caribbean. All the doors get slung open, and you can walk from store to store and grab a roll of fabric here and get it tailored there. We wanted to get that essence of what Wynwood was for a lot of us."

Lopez del Carmen adds, "In her sewing of fabrics that she took from her grandmother's home, Desi's also taking pieces of the history of this neighborhood. It's that perfect stitch from the past to the present. Nobody's here to ignore where we currently are or to take away the value of the folks doing the good work with new movements and new styles in Wynwood, but that comes from somewhere. It comes from an infrastructure that was already laid, a culture that already splashed these walls with the colors of joy. This show is a freeze frame of the past and the current moment, and it reminds you that there doesn't have to be a disconnect between them."

"'Abuela's House' is an invitation to walk in and leave a piece of yourself and take a piece of something else."

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The team behind "Abuela's House" at Supermarket Gallery is a relatively new presence in Miami's fine-arts ecosystem that aims to serve as a reaction to the oftentimes pretentious, even exploitative relationships that galleries and arts institutions can form with artists. "Abuela's House" is Supermarket's second exhibition, and according to its cofounder Maria Gabriela Di Giammarco, it serves as a welcoming appeal to all to join a growing creative community, regardless of the clout you carry, the names you can drop, or the amount of money lining your pockets.

"'Abuela's House' is an invitation to walk in and leave a piece of yourself and take a piece of something else. This show really is prioritizing care — not simply in a familial context, but in a community context," says Di Giammarco, who runs Supermarket with cofounders Mario Andres Rodriguez and Jahi Khalfani. "I don't think there could have been a more perfect alignment. We, like Desi, are not interested in marketing something. Yes, we want sales. Yes, we want to get her work into certain collections, but we also want to open doors for possibilities."

"Our goal is comprehensive accessibility for collectors, community members, people who feel alienated by the arts ecosystem, and artists, especially emerging artists. Instead of tokenizing every part of an artist, it's about centering the things in their imagination and heart," Di Giammarco says. "That's what a gallery is supposed to do."

"Abuela's House." 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday, September 14, through Sunday, September 29, at Grand Opening Gallery, 2242 NW First Pl., Miami; 786-273-7138; instagram.com/gogallerymia. Admission is free.