James Fuentes Online is pleased to present schematics for a new armillary, an exhibition of recent works by Ronny Quevedo. Quevedo embarks on careful material processes in order to draw deeply interwoven conceptual and historical references within his works—often paying homage through this connection to manual labor and work made by hand.

Created thousands of years ago, an ‘armillary sphere’ is a three-dimensional astronomical model composed of graduating rings. Representing lines of celestial longitude, latitude, and other astronomical features, the sphere models the position and motion of celestial bodies in the skies. Translating heavens-scale information into drastically flattened instruments, the iconic imagery of the earth’s globe and the celestial sphere marks the foundation for Ronny Quevedo’s newest body of work.

Bringing together recent works on paper that use a range of physical transfer processes, schematics for a new armillary counters and expands the notion of an all-encompassing image. By fragmenting recognizable symbols of boundaries, orientation, migration, and time, these works bring into question the neutrality of mapping while at the same time paying tribute to the people and histories that continually offer new and transformative visions of the world. Quevedo himself seeks to foreground a multiplicity of signs and signifiers, generating new definitions and multiple perspectives for where we locate ourselves in history and place. More information on the materials, processes, and references behind each work in schematics for a new armillary can be found through the James Fuentes Online portal.

Ronny Quevedo (b. 1981 in Guayaquil, Ecuador and lives and works in the Bronx, New York) holds an MFA from the Yale School of Art (2013) and a BFA from The Cooper Union (2003). Quevedo is recipient of a Jerome Hill Artists Fellowship, Queens Museum/Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists, an A Blade of Grass Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art, and an Emerging Artist Fellowship/Residency at Socrates Sculpture Park. He has undertaken residencies at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; the Core Residency Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture; and at Smack Mellon, Brooklyn. Quevedo’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at The Drawing Center, Whitney Museum, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Queens Museum, and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among others.

Images are courtesy of Argenis Apolinario