Devin Osorio combines painting and textiles to create magical realist compositions of Washington Heights, a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan celebrated for its large Dominican-American population. The artist—inspired by folklore, artisanal crafts, storytelling, and ethnographic studies of the Caribbeans and Latin America—instills personal memories into fables and narratives that are both dissected and imagined. Motivated by a desire to document the Dominican diasporic experience, his works are intended to become future artifacts that can convey the story of his community.
Featuring a figure suspended from a branch of a tropical fruit tree, Aprender Del Caer was inspired by a conversation that Osorio once had with a South African shaman, who told him, "I've always felt bad for kids that grow up in big cities because there are no trees. When you grow up around trees, you learn to climb them and, more importantly, how to fall off of them. You learn that the scariest part of falling off the trees is the idea of falling." Painted during a time of personal transition for the artist, the work symbolizes a meditative reflection on fear and risk-taking.
Osorio notes, "As a first-generation Dominican-American, gender non-conforming individual from Washington Heights, I have personally endured the violence, fear, and loneliness that is often experienced within the queer community. My community, chosen family, and I are forever grateful to organizations such as the Destination Tomorrow because, with their help, we are able to live unimaginable and at times, unprecedented lives. Every morning I start my day by listing off the things I'm grateful for, and in this list is always a community center or organization that has helped create the person I am now."
Devin Osorio
Aprender Del Caer, 2021
24 x 14.5 inches
Archival pigment print
Limited Edition of 25 with 4 AP
Signed and numbered by the artist
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