Alexia Benavent: De aquí, De allá

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Alexia Benavent: De aquí, De allá - Connecting with Home

Opening Reception: April 11, 5-9pm
On View: April 11 – May 2
Morean Center for Clay:
420 22nd St. S.

Artist’s Statement

In a diaspora often the only thing you can take from your home are memories.

Suddenly everything can be a reservoir of memory, old photos of a favorite restaurant, a bowl you used every day from your mother’s kitchen. Even rusty tools from a childhood home can become treasured keepsakes and tangible connections to places that are not the same and may only exist now in this handful of remembrances. In a world that so strongly wants to deny you a place, they take you back to a time you didn’t even realize was so precious. Anything too big to fit in a suitcase is left behind forever. Items like photos are some of the last reminders of a home now long gone.

This exhibition is an exploration of the tenderness and fragility of the past, conducted through the use of soft and hard materials. The objects chosen are small, mundane, and often ephemeral to show how everyone finds their own way to carry home with them. During the creation of each object care was taken to preserve signs of the artist’s hands to signify a level of care for memory even found in seemingly insignificant objects.

Artist Bio

Alexia Benavent-Rivera is a latina artist born in Puerto Rico with heritage in Panama and Ukraine. Currently based in Florida, Benavent-Rivera’s artwork is informed by the diverse cultural background she was raised with. Drawing inspiration from a combination of traditional art from the diasporic homelands, her work is an exploration of personal experience and cultural practices. Venturing into various mediums like ceramics, textiles and print, much of Benavent-Rivera’s work hinges on the shared cultural trauma of diaspora. Her current projects touch upon themes of reclamation in times of exploitation and connection through culture and memory. Benavent-Rivera is currently working as an MFA candidate at Florida State University having received her BA in Interdisciplinary Studies in Art and Design at University of Georgia. Her work was most recently shown in the juried exhibition at Art Center Sarasota where she won a Merit Award (2025) , she is also published in Suboart Magazine Nr. 47, Secac Southeastern College Art Conference Juried Show (2024 and 2025) and FSU Excellence in Visual Arts Exhibition, Honors, Scholars, and Fellows House (HSF) (2025-2026).

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