Backyard Dreams #5, deals with memory, identity, and family ties as does much of Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons works. In this large-format photograph, the artist and her son are seated in a garden, surrounded by brightly colored flowers and a painted backdrop of her grandmother. The grandmother watches from another place, gazing beyond the viewer. The two women wear dresses that might come from the same period, while the son seems to be plucked from contemporary life. Are they in paradise, or posing in the back-yard? Here the garden seems transport the pair, Campos-Pons who has lived in the Boston area for15 years and whose son was born there, to their ancestors from Cuba and Africa.

Campos-Pons works in many mediums including photography, painting, performance, and installation. This photograph was included her recent New York solo exhibition Backyard Dreams at Julie Saul Gallery, New York, NY, along with paintings that explored a primal connection with nature. Her work has been exhibited extensively including at the Museum of Modern Art, Salvador Bahia, Brazil; Retratos: 2,000 Years of Latin American Portraits, El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY and the Smithsonian Museum, Washington, DC; Dak’art, the Contemporary African Art Bienniale, Dakar Senegal; Only Skin Deep, International Center for Photography, New York, NY ; and A Town Portrait, Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, NY. A significant retrospective of her work opens in February 2007 at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. She studied at the National School of Art, and the Higher Institute of Art in Havana, Cuba, and the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston. www.Saulgallery.com