Christian Ruiz Berman: No Shortcuts to Aztlan

No shortcuts to Aztlan

My garden is found
in a starlit maze 

and its growing walls are lined 
with a morass of superfluous flowers

there are no highways
that cut through the winding groves
of ponderosa and papyrus.

My homeland is a hologram 
projected from an onyx eye

and my heart lives on the open palm
of philosophers and pharaohs

there are no easy ways
to thread the thoughts that fall 
like a hail of burning arrows.

Two mockingbirds 
meet between time and space

and their dainty chrome feet
dance on the dials of power

the grackles of grace 
guard the garden gates-
Inside is god giving god to god
animal, icon, and flower.

– Christian Ruiz Berman No shortcuts to Aztlan is Christian Ruiz Berman’s first solo exhibition with Nicodim, and his first in Los Angeles. Berman draws from personal histories of migration and adaptation in his intricate paintings. His stylistic influences are wide: perspectives and the mood of Japanese ukiyo-e printing; the direct and tragicomic nature of mariachi ballads and Mexican folklore; and the confrontation of Indigenous, European, and Tibetan Buddhist symbology. He remixes traditions of abstraction, realism, and trompe l’oeil into joyous compositions that teem with color and vitality. He draws from personal backgrounds in graphic design and architecture, his Mexican heritage, and narratives of adaptation and migration to create dynamic packed scenes. These guides support Ruiz Berman’s layered methods of working with abstraction and iconography. His work encourages viewers to examine what is exotic and what is commonplace, what is authentic and what is fabricated.