Patrick McGrath Muñiz: Recolecciones/Recollections

May 31 –August 24, 2025

The title of this project, Recollections / Recolecciones, immediately invokes the bilingual realm in which these works live. In English, “Recollections” often refers to the personal act of remembering—memories plucked from the past and brought into the present. The Spanish term “Recolecciones,” however, can also imply a process of gathering or harvesting, suggesting a more collective, deliberate effort to retrieve what has been sown over time. This subtle linguistic difference reflects the layered themes Muñiz explores: the interplay between personal and cultural memory, the yearning for a lost past, and the ongoing process of reassembling meaning from fragments.  

The exhibition includes 20 painted altarpieces, canvases and drawings which are testaments not only to the resilience of memory but also to the fragility of what we hold dear. In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, Muñiz lost both his studio and the childhood home that had sheltered so many of his earliest creative impulses. The storm underscored the impermanence of physical structures, just as it forced him to confront the ephemeral nature of memory and history. Carl Jung once remarked that “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” In this work, the artist looks both within—through the intimate recollection of a past life on an analog island, as well as his lost works—and outside, grappling with the collective challenges of a global era shaped by climate change, shifting political fault lines, and rampant consumer culture.  

About the Artist

Patrick McGrath Muñiz is a Puerto Rican artist currently based in Texas. His artistic practice primarily focuses on drawings, retablo paintings, and tarot cards, inspired profoundly by a personal deck of tarot recovered from his childhood home and studio in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria in 2017. Muñiz's work integrates elements of Spanish colonial iconography, American pop culture, and tarot symbolism, layered intricately with personal narratives and collective memories. Through these compositions, he critically examines the enduring colonial legacies embedded within contemporary consumer culture.

Muñiz has held solo exhibitions at esteemed institutions, including Museo de las Américas in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Museo Convento Las Capuchinas in Antigua, Guatemala; Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum in Mesa, Arizona; Fort Worth Community Arts Center in Fort Worth, Texas; The Jung Center in Houston, Texas; and Taller Puertorriqueño in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Muñiz holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of Fine Arts of San Juan, Puerto Rico (2003), and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Savannah College of Art and Design (2006). His artworks reside in several public collections, including the National Hispanic Cultural Center and the Albuquerque Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico; The Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum in Mesa, Arizona; The Reading Public Museum in Reading, Pennsylvania; and the New Orleans Museum of Art. His works also form part of numerous private collections across the United States, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean.