Sita Gomez Is Back ... and Exhibiting at BWAC

By Jon Hammer

The career of painter Sita Gomez seems to be skyrocketing in the year of her 90th birthday, proving art is ageless. Born in Paris, raised in Cuba, educated in New York, exiled by both Hitler and Fidel Castro, Gomez has lived a life of rich experience which energizes her bold, colorful, and symbolic imagery.

Cecelia Sita Gomez was born in 1932 in Paris, the daughter of Doctor Domingo Mauricio Gomez-Gimeranez and Else-Marie (Formo) Gomez. Though her father was born to a poor family in an obscure village in the Cuban countryside, he was a scientific prodigy, graduating with degrees in medicine and mathematics from the University of Havana. Dr. Gomez-Gimeranez moved to Paris to continue his studies in the late 1920s, and the research he conducted there, using mathematics to describe the workings of the cardiovascular system, drew accolades from leading scientists including Albert Einstein. Unfortunately, his work also captured the attention of Adolf Hitler, and after the occupation of France, Gomez found himself under intense pressure from the Nazis to work for them. The family fled to London, and then New York. A return to Cuba was interrupted by the Cuban Revolution in 1959, and again Dr. Gomez was driven to seek refuge in the U.S.

His daughter, Sita Gomez, thrived in New York City. In 1955 she graduated from Parsons, and married George Kanelba, son of noted Polish portrait painter Raymond Kanelba. Gomez quickly established herself as a painter with a series of solo and group shows that spanned the 1960s and 1970s. Her work has been shown in exhibits and galleries all over the world, from the Cisneros Gallery in New York to the Museum of Modern Art in Bogata, Colombia. Though personal reasons interrupted the flow of her career, today she is back showing her work.

The art of Sita Gomez shimmers with voluptuous forms, vibrant color, and resonates with historical references and mythological allegory. Several paintings can be seen in conjunction with the Somos LatinX exhibition, currently on view at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition gallery. You won't want to miss this opportunity to experience this lively and stimulating body of work and the re-emergence of Gomez as an artist.

Somos LatinX is a juried show featuring an international selection of artists spanning the Latin-American experience. The exhibition may be viewed at BWAC on weekends between 1 and 6 pm, from November 12th through the 20th. The Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, an artist-run nonprofit founded in 1978, occupies two floors of the massive Civil War-era Beard and Robinson Stores warehouse at 481 Van Brunt Street on the Red Hook waterfront in Brooklyn, NY.