THE FLAG
Art Ovation Hotel, Sarasota
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
The American flag occupies a unique position in the national consciousness-simultaneously universal and deeply personal. This exhibition brings together works by nine artists who engage with this iconic symbol through diverse visual languages and material approaches, revealing the multifaceted ways contemporary Americans relate to their flag. These artists transform the familiar red, white, and blue into vehicles for individual expression and collective reflection. From heavily textured impasto surfaces that weather the flag's pristine geometry to sculptural interpretations that bend its rigid form, each work demonstrates how personal experience shapes our relationship with the national symbol. Some artists embrace the flag's traditional iconography while others fragment, layer, or reimagine its elements entirely. The diversity of approaches reflects the complexity of American identity itself-ranging from figurative scenes of community gathering to abstract explorations of color and texture-reflects the complexity of American identity itself. Here, stars become brushstrokes, stripes transform into ribbons of paint, and the flag's familiar proportions yield to artistic vision. Through painting, mixed media, sculptural work, and ceramics, these artists demonstrate that artistic response transcends simple representation. Their varied treatments reveal how symbols acquire meaning through lived experience, personal history, and creative interpretation. Together, these works form a contemporary dialogue about what it means to encounter and transform the images that define our shared culture. "As America approaches its 250th birthday, I'm bringing together nine Sarasota visual artists exploring their feelings about America and its flag. Welcome to "The Flag," diverse explorations of national identity through art."
- Artist and Curator Andrea Dasha Reich
Drafted into the Dream and The Weight of Belonging are two mixed-media paintings that reimagine one of the most charged symbols of the modern world: the American flag. Through these works, I confront the intersections of identity, colonialism, and power — revealing how national symbols can both unite and oppress, include and erase.
“As a Puerto Rican artist living in the United States, my works reflect the complex relationship between citizenship, belonging, identity, and colonial status — a nationality not chosen, but imposed through history and utility. We are U.S. citizens, but not equals.”
-MARA Torres González
MARA Torres González, Drafted into the Dream, 2025, Mixed media on canvas, 60 x 48 inches, $5,500
In Drafted into the Dream, a fourteenth brown stripe interrupts the familiar pattern — a deliberate act of recognition and resistance. The stripe represents Puerto Rico, a U.S. colony often left out of the story of “the united.” At the base, soldiers (toys) stand in formation, gazing upward toward the flag — a reminder of 1917, when Puerto Ricans were granted U.S. citizenship to be drafted into World War I. That citizenship, while offering certain benefits — mobility, opportunity, protection — came with an invisible cost: the weight of allegiance without equality. It was a gift wrapped in obligation, a belonging that demanded service before granting voice.
This work questions the nature of belonging — how it feels to be drafted into someone else’s dream, to carry a citizenship not freely chosen but strategically assigned. The layers of texture evoke both structure and strain, mirroring the tension between pride, resistance, and survival.
In both works, gauze plays a central role — a material both fragile and binding. It recalls wounds and healing, but also honors the Puerto Rican men who fought for ”the dream,” without the full rights that dream promised. It is a metaphor for endurance — the layered history, pride, and pain that define our identity as resilient colonial citizens.
MARA Torres González, The Weight of Belonging, 2025, Mixed media on canvas, 48 x 60 inches, $5,500
In The Weight of Belonging, the light blue recalls Puerto Rico’s sea and sky — symbols of freedom. Toy soldiers again shoulder the burden of citizenship, carrying the symbolic weight of inclusion without equality. Through altered versions of the American flag, I reflect on silenced voices at the ballot, the transactional nature of our citizenship, and the quiet weight of exclusion. These paintings are layered with memory, protest, and an insistence on being seen.
Together, they transform the flag into a dialogue — a site of truth and reflection. The Flag invites us to confront what has been overlooked: the stories of those claimed but not represented, celebrated yet still colonized. These are not celebrations — they are quiet protests, acts of remembrance, and proposals for what could be.