Wrought & Fraught: Augusto Bordelois CAN Triennial Exhibition Prize show at the Canton Museum of Art

The weight of the world rests uneasy. Beauty appears, accompanied now by irony, now by reckoning; nearby, wandering and wonder come alongside to sit. Massive figures strain at the confines of their borders yet look utterly at home in their surroundings. Here are Stories Worth Telling, oil paintings by Augusto Bordelois on exhibit at the Canton Museum of Art, August 26 through October 26.

“I am interested in everything and in nothing,” says Bordelois. “Whatever happens to me, what matters to me—that is what I am interested in. As I paint, I let the work be creative, which then creates a living space that creates more work. That’s why I have several works on the same theme—this happens every time. And I don’t mind what comes to my mind. I just work.”

Bordelois is a prolific worker. He graduated from the University of Havana, Cuba, with a degree in English Language and Literature, and has studied ceramics, theatrical and cinematic costume design, and classical drawing and painting. His visual works have appeared in more than 150 national and international group shows and 35 solo exhibitions, and are in private and institutional collections worldwide.

Bordelois is a dynamo: a creative juggernaut of production. He has written and illustrated short stories for children, contributed to literary journals, designed costumes and floats for carnivals in Cuba and for Parade the Circle in Cleveland, assisted with public landscape design, coordinated community art programs, created public art pieces, and served on numerous boards of arts organizations in Northeast Ohio.

His awards include recognition from, among others, the Ohio Arts Council, the Ohio State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition, the NewNow, and the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts Painting Award; Bordelois was the Canton Museum of Art’s choice for the 2022 CAN Triennial Exhibition Prize.

In Bordelois’ world, the real and surreal cozy up, then turn their implacable eyes to the viewer. The picnic trio of Ribbons and Pearls balances the incongruous elegance of white-gloved women with a beribboned pig—very luncheon on the grass with those bare shoulders, except for the ominous band of fall foliage standing sentinel in the background. The women gaze beyond the viewer, looking for something more. The pig looks front and center. Who, really, is trussed up for market?

Rust Belt Lovers is an inverse of George Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grand Jatte, a slice of after-afternoon delight in public, a woman of color corseted and contained while her white companion hides his face under a dapper bowler. Both figures are too big for their frame: her umbrella, his crossed legs keep going beyond what is shown, just like the factory march of smokestacks in the distance on this miraged version of the Cuyahoga River. Bordelois’ rounded, phenomenal figures and recognizable surrealist notes claim cousinship with painters Tamara de Lempicka and René Magritte.

And follow the pigs throughout: most of the works on view in the exhibit are part of a series called Entitlement, painted in 2024 and reflecting Bordelois’ exploration of what that concept means. “When I was creating the series, the beginning was very bleak, thinking about the cultural and political climate,” says Bordelois. “The more I got into it, the more I understood the concept of entitlement. By using animals in the paintings, I get to represent something bigger, something metaphorical, about entitlement. And I realized that I, too, was entitled by implication of being—and working—in that same climate.”

The paintings in the Entitlement series are all large—three and four and five and six feet on a side—and play with figurative scale and location throughout the series. Pigs are larger than cows, people are smaller than pigs; pigs peek out from behind lush foliage; pigs accompany a lone bagpiper on a moor with clouds that look frozen. These pigs are charming, dangerous, ubiquitous. Kind of like entitlement itself (says the implicated art exhibit reviewer at her desk; says the purchaser who invests in these large works of art, perhaps living in an irony-free zone).

“This work is steeped in metaphor and imagery, telling a story that transcends the written language,” says Christy Davis, curator of exhibitions at the Canton Museum of Art. “During the CAN Triennial, we looked for work that told a story that would resonate with our community. The Museum is in a unique situation; we are in downtown Canton, with a bus stop right out front; we have the opportunity to give members of our community—who might not be able to visit a major museum—access to art. We looked for representation that reflected our community with stories that they can resonate with. Bordelois’ captivating, quality work hits all of those marks.”

The show title, Stories Worth Painting, is a phrase that just came to Bordelois. “To me, these are stories worth painting. I don’t know a different kind of art, just how to create stories through composition and by following their lines. There is a heaviness here, but a beautiful heaviness.”

Stories Worth Painting’s opening reception is 5 to 7 pm on Thursday, August 28. (Thursdays offer free admission to the museum courtesy of the PNC Foundation). The Canton Museum of Art is located at 1001 Market Avenue North, Canton, Ohio, 44702. Open 10 am to 8 pm Tuesday through Thursday; 10 am to 5 pm Friday through Sunday. Admission: $8 adults; $6 seniors, students, military ID; children under 12 are free. Free admission for Canton Museum of Art members (including Ohio Reciprocal Memberships), and Blue Star Families (with valid ID), Museums for All (SNAP/EBT card and valid ID). For more information visit cantonart.org.

Augusto Bordelois: Stories Worth Painting
CAN Triennial Exhibition Prize Show
August 26 – October 26
Canton Museum of Art
1001 Market Avenue
North, Canton, Ohio, 44702