The last caresses to the Ceiba

During a sleepless night in November 2021, Ponce artist Luis “Tato” González Almodóvar approaches the death mask that preserves the likeness of the face and hands of his late father, Luis R. González León, also an artist. His thick, amber-colored fingers immediately bring to mind the roots of his beloved “Ceiba de Ponce,” a renowned symbol of the southern city. At that precise moment, he decides to pay tribute to the centenary tree, which had been declared dead just a few weeks earlier. This is how he begins the most ambitious project of his career: in a gesture of respect and commemoration, he decides to immortalize the effigy of the “Ceiba de Ponce,” the muse of Puerto Rican poets, writers, and painters, among them the great Francisco Oller y Cestero.

For about two months, the artist carries out countless experiments in situ on different supports using the frottage technique. The sixteen sketches presented in this exhibition document the artist’s creative process and passionate search for the perfect formula to “preserve a genuine memory of its bark” in what will eventually become The Shroud of the Ceiba, a canvas of monumental dimensions, which will be presented in the Jardín Puerto Rico of the Museo de Arte de Ponce in August 2024. Both exhibitions comprise Requiem to the “Ceiba de Ponce”: Tato González, our satellite project for the Poli/Gráfica de Puerto Rico: América Latina y el Caribe, 2024.

The artist wishes to acknowledge the collaboration of Maruja Candal, Jesús Candelario, Maritza Figueroa Fernández, Juan Rivera Colón, René Rivera Sevilla, Freddy Soto, Danny Torres, Julio César Torres

Antonio “Tony” Zayas, and the Autonomous Municipality of Ponce. This exhibition project is made possible by a grant from the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña and funds provided by the United States Department of the Treasury, “American Rescue Plan,” “State and Local Recovery Funds,” through AAFAF, Coronavirus State and Local Recovery Funds (CSFRF).