Adelina Ruvalcaba, upon completing her MFA at Pacific Northwest College of Arts, expanded her thesis project into a robust solo show at Portland’s One Grand Gallery. I first encountered Ruvalcaba’s work at Building Five for PNCA’s group MFA exhibition. Her installation drew me in with a dinner table and serape table runner displaying the most realistic looking fake food I had seen since my childhood days at the toy store. I noticed chips, conchas, cookies, and a bottle of hot sauce, among a few other items, which piqued my imagination with their synesthetic deliciousness. I could almost feel them, taste them, their color, crunch, saltiness, and sweetness. A vase of dried sunflowers sat at the center of the table. My imagination churned on. Who had left this scene untouched, preserved in time? What prompted this affair, and where did everyone go?

When I attended the opening of Ruvalcaba’s show at One Grand, she told me that this—her work—was the “most vulnerable part” of herself. The title of her exhibition I Am de Mis Antepasadas, feminizes the term “antepasados,” which means “forefathers” in Spanish, dialing in on the maternal family that nurtured her. Her exhibition expands on the concept I encountered at Building Five, a long low table decorated with serapes and adorned with foods that reflect the artist’s Mexican and Puerto Rican cultural heritage. The installation appeared to collapse time, offering a gathering space for generations of ancestors.

On one end of the table sat an array of totopos (aka. tortilla chips), pink pan dulce conchas, fudge stripe cookies, bowls of salsa, and bottles of naranja and límon límon soda that looked much like the real bottles of Jarritos soda in a cooler near the gallery door, which were provided as a refreshment for gallery goers. I observed oranges and orange peels effectively textured with holes for oil glands. Ruvalcaba crafted all these food items meticulously by hand with materials including clay, glaze, and acrylic paint. 

I also noticed a Puerto Rican Style coffee bag ripped open and spilling coffee beans on a bamboo tray. Despite their hyperrealism, Ruvalcaba fabricated the coffee beans too, fooling me with their placement in an authentic Café El Morro wrapping. Her hand building skills proved stunning and illusory.

One Grand’s Gallery Director Luiza Lukova mentioned offhandedly to me that Ruvalcaba intended this end of the table, nearest the gallery entrance, to present more contemporary foods, while the other end held items with longer lineages. Ruvalcaba stealthily placed a few dry food items at the latter end, such as kernels of hominy that rested in a stone molcajete used for grinding grain (I confirmed the hominy’s authenticity after being fooled by the lifelike nature of other fabricated foods) as well as dry rice and shreds of Mexican cinnamon in a small jug,  symbolizing the drink horchata. The dry ingredients suggested both a possibility for future nourishment and a reflection of their preservation and past.

The table also contained stoneware “seasoned” with Ruvalcaba’s cultural foods of influence including chilis, plantains, rice, garlic, pinto beans, coffee grounds, bay leaf, fideo noodles, tomatillo husks, and the list goes on. Ruvalcaba embedded all these dry ingredients into the clay before burnout firing, leaving their detailed imprints on the plates. These pieces reflect Ruvalcaba’s interest in prehistoric caves and fossils, the way trees, vegetation, and other textures become preserved by stone. She managed to glaze each piece distinctly, allowing color to remain or pool in crevices, setting off the imprints. 

Surrounding the table, more of these stoneware plates hung on the walls. Pedestals peppered the gallery space with additional creations, many of which featured cavelike scenes offering an aura of antiquity, secrets, and sacredness.

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Ruvalcaba’s work with ceramics reads as directly connected to the materiality of bodies. Her replication of stoneware plates, with their samenesses and differences, reflects a human lineage of flesh and spirit accented with imprints of unique experiences. The foods fabricated from memory and found ingredients—dualities of absence and presence—fold time in on itself and call forward the presence of ancestors at this table. References to ingredients such as hominy, a corn treated through the ancient technology that enhances its nutritional impact called “nixtamalization,” reflects indigenous wisdom carried into the future. 

Using her profound skill with ceramics, Ruvalcaba manages to “fossilize,” unearth, and reveal her heritage through a feast of tableaux that nourishes. Through meticulous craftsmanship and penchant for trompe l’oeil, she draws visitors to her family table using familiar frames of reference, a caring practice of trickery that stokes the flames of a much larger story. 

I Am de Mis Antepasadas is on view at One Grand Gallery through July 25. The gallery is open Mon – Sun 12-5p and by appointment. Please email luiza@onegrandgallery.com to schedule an appointment.