Close to 2,300 km separate Santa Cruz de Mao and New Jersey, but visual artist Raelis Vasquez has been hell-bent on closing that gap for as long as he's been creating his vivid oil paintings. Even though he mostly portrays scenes from his native Dominican Republic, his work is imbued with his own experiences as an immigrant in the city he's called home since he was 7 years old.
In Vasquez's universe, the connection between both places can appear in different forms. In some cases, passages from his Jersey life are portrayed indoors while Dominican landscapes can be seen in the background, creating a new, amalgamated space. In other, more recent cases, he's started combining oil and acrylic with beach sand from the shores of both places, a piece of his own history extending into the materials he uses.
