Located in North Miami, a few blocks from the Museum of Contemporary Art, MOCA, Cowry Art Studio is also functioning as a virtual space, promoting and selling the artworks of Rafael López Ramos and Natasha Perdomo, an artists couple who have been living and creating together for over 24 years.
International Art Fairs, like Art Basel, Art Miami, Context, Red Dot, Pinta, and Wynwood; have put the Miami art scene on the spotlight, while presenting artists from around the world and commercial galleries. Cowry Art Studio is an Alternative Independent Art Space.

Cowry Art Studio opens the 1st Miami Contemporary Small Format Art Exhibition, presenting 35 artists from different States of the USA. North Miami, FL - It will be available for public view, only by appointment, from March 21st to April 25th, 2020, and also through a catalog and store online, where artworks could be safely purchased from home. Small format art from American (or America based) artists seems to be a perfect curatorial concept for a show at an independent space of modest proportions like Cowry Art Studio, even when the current pandemic situation has turned it into a true challenge. We all certainly are “living in interesting times”, but the great and diverse selection of works that make up this exhibition may help us heal, in every sense, through the power and beauty of art, while making this moment somehow enjoyable, and unforgettable in the best way. Participating artists: Maria Ayub, Wildalys Class, Larry Davis, Sebastian Elizondo, Miriam Esteve, Helena Faitelson, Daniel Fiorda, Jonathan Fisher, Carol Flaitz, Genesis Florentino, Jaime Fournier, Danny Glass, Ronald Gonzalez, Chalda Maloff, Catherine Mapp, Beth McCoy, Bruno Paz, Moises Ramos, Kelly Reilly, Jesus Rivera, Candida Rodriguez, Agustin Rolando Rojas, Karen Ross, Ken Schuck, Maya Sokovic, Mario Sostre, Priti Srivastava, Runcie Tatnall, Eliseo Valdes, Cristina Villamil, Gail Watkins, Cathy Wester, Jenny Wu, Alla Zareva. Curators: Natasha Perdomo / Rafael Lopez-Ramos This event is free of charge / Where: Cowry Art Studio. Exhibition runs from March 21st to April 25th, 2020

My work has always been more concept than style based, which allows me to freely choose the media and visual language that better fits the needs of each project, knowing that every artwork always bears the imprint of its creator, in different ways.
When painting I use to juxtapose and superimpose images and symbols on Abstract Expressionist backgrounds -“on the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth showing through”, as Milan Kundera wrote in Immortality. Last year, however, I decided to dive into my work's backgrounds in order to explore in depth its “unintelligible truth” part, fully centering my energy on how to create good Abstract paintings while allowing my hand to have fun, within the gestural and lyrical post-war tradition.
In a Zen-like state of mind I explore, and enjoy, the fluidity of the paint as a substance, and its almost sexual ability to engender new shapes when mixed / spread by a brush or any other analogical tool. Color is the other grand subject of this investigation, and I usually cook it as a sauté study of its subtle scales of hues, tints, tones and shades, in the aim to emulate the balance, harmony, and counterpoints usually recurred by Baroque music. RLR

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The Dead Sea Scrolls
This short suite of works derives from a series Lopez-Ramos created in Havana, for the exhibition Walking Beside you in the Buddhist Temple (Vancouver, 1997). Some of the 7 artworks been shown now, were part of those pieces or are made with documents, objects or tokens he brought with him in order to finish these works, or make new ones. He aimed to record human experience focusing on its social, biological, national, and individual spheres, represented by some of its own fragments and vestiges, mixing yellowish historical tokens and the most banal, current, local objects, along signs and symbols of ancient mystical traditions, maps, plans, sketches, and handwritten notes by himself or other people, following a sort of “collective bricolage” creative method.

Works on paper. Online, Virtual show due to COVID-19 Pandemic *Only by appointment

Cowry Art Studio is pleased to present an exhibition of selected works from different stages of López-Ramos' artistic practice through 40 years, since his first solo show (Muestra ecléctica, Galería 10 de Octubre, Havana), in December 1980. It includes several works from the 80s and 90s, other created during the period he resided in Canada (1997-2006), and the subsequent series he made in Miami: Mirroring Nature (2007-2010), Wonderland (2011-2014), and Aporias (2014-2017).
We fended off the “retrospective” label, as this is not an exhaustive compilation of works loaned from private collections, but one only comprising pieces in the artist's collection, which saved us the cumbersome process of loan agreements and shipping of artworks from different cities and countries.
A digital catalog of the exhibition is available, reproducing all artworks, and a selection of essays and reviews about them, plus an introductory text written ad hoc for this publication, which will be the first extensive documentation of López-Ramos work.