Brayan Enriquez explores household, distance, reconnection in ‘Like Hills Made from Sand’

Brayan Enriquez‘s solo exhibition Like Hills Made from Sand is at present on view on the Atlanta Heart for Images. Captured through the artist’s first go to to Mexico, when he reunited together with his prolonged household, the ensuing exhibition is a component journey documentary and half private diary. 

On this journey, Enriquez met many relations for the primary time and was reunited with others who had been deported from the USA over a decade in the past. This exhibition feels particularly well timed given the present state of immigration insurance policies and the complexities of the migrant expertise in 2025. 

That includes extra conventional portraits interspersed with askance moments and household memorabilia, the images inform a story exploring migration, household and belonging. Whereas the premise for this exhibition’s genesis alone is one to marvel at, introduced right here, the outstanding emotional impact and virtuosic manipulation of the medium are subsumed by a din of blended metaphors.

Earlier than moving into the gallery, Enriquez’s use of metaphor as a storytelling gadget units the tone for the exhibition. The title Like Hills Made from Sand connotes ephemerality, instability, transience and monumentality. Studying this title and the press launch, which states that the artist is “mining lived experiences spanning generations and nation-states to picture the invisible results of U.S. immigration insurance policies,” I anticipated to enter an exhibition with political poignancy and heart-wrenching efficiency. 

Within the exhibition, the metaphor of hills and sand halts abruptly, save for its look within the title of 1 art work — Los Cerros (Household Archive Verso #3). As an alternative, we’re inundated with water as a brand new metaphor. 

Instantly contained in the entryway are Stars over the Pacific #1 and #2. A stygian floor is populated solely by small flecks and small bleeds of white. The very high-contrast worth of this picture causes the lowlights to be all-consuming and the highlights to be obtrusive, with solely the art work title clueing us in to what this {photograph} depicts. The piece is a masterwork of technical finesse, however I discovered little reference to the premise of immigration insurance policies and unsolid hills. The piece, and others prefer it, as a substitute opened a dialogue in a special metaphorical language.

Additional into the exhibition we discover My mom’s collage that hangs in my grandmother’s room, after Hurricane Otis. A lot because the title describes, this art work is {a photograph} of a giant tableau fully coated with photographs from the household’s historical past — weddings and births and portraits. 

Right here once more, the exhibition appears to veer into a brand new vernacular, this one specializing in the archives of a household. The piece is charming for its preciousness — the interpretation from originals to reproductions did little to decrease the emotional weight of them — however it appears to be extra in dialogue with reminiscence, the fallibility of the archive and the gradual erosion of time quite than connecting to the overarching themes of transience and immigration. 

The confluence of those diversified metaphors created a way of disconnect from the higher points at hand. Whereas I did contemplate whether or not the turbulence of the reunion between the artist and his prolonged household might have influenced the general impression of the exhibition, my uncertainty round its intentionality undermined no matter impact it might have had.

The artist has indisputably confirmed his adeptness with images — not solely by advantage of the artworks themselves but in addition with regard to his reception of the ACP Rising Artist Fellowship — a year-long fellowship awarded to at least one rising photographer culminating in a three-month exhibition held on the gallery. And, but, I ponder if a extra streamlined narrative construction may benefit the artworks. 

I’d argue that if the works all spoke the identical metaphorical language, they’d maybe extra simply complement and empower each other. Because it stands, the higher messages are considerably misplaced within the noise.

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Leia Genis is a trans artist and author at present based mostly in Atlanta. Her writing has been printed in Hyperallergic, Frieze, Burnaway, Artwork Papers and Quantity: Inc. journal. Genis is a graduate of the Savannah Faculty of Artwork and Design and can also be an avid bike owner with a contest historical past on the nationwide stage.