Trujillo, Rosales /
PULSE Miami

De Soto Gallery presented new works by Joaquin Trujillo and Ramona Rosales at PULSE Miami 2015, drawn from their respective solo projects Mal de Ojo (Trujillo) and Shelter (Rosales). Both artists use dramatically staged vignettes to explore the idea of home, speaking to the universal impulse for myth-making and the search for meaning in everyday life.

Trujillo’s Mal de Ojo (“the evil eye”) was inspired by his memories of falling gravely ill as a child in Zacatecas, Mexico. When scarlet fever—believed to be the result of a curse—threatened his life and eyesight, his family turned to a local curandero (healer) for protection. The resulting images are split into two parts: fetishistic portrayals of the artist’s trauma and carefully arranged tabletop still lifes of folk remedies, personal amulets, and totems. Often presented as diptychs or triptychs, the works reflect themes of isolation, belief, and resilience.

Selections from Trujillo’s Flores series accompanied the installation. These richly symbolic floral still lifes pay tribute to the women (and a few men) who shaped his early life. Raised between Mexico and the U.S., Trujillo recalls how flowers filled his family’s homes—used medicinally and ceremonially. Drawing on the sentiment of Victorian “talking bouquets,” the images function as expressive, coded memorials. Together, Mal de Ojo and Flores channel a vibrant worldview, mapping cultural inheritance across time and place.

Rosales’ Shelter reimagines domestic space through the language of pop culture. The artist wrapped façades on Blondie Street—an iconic set on the Warner Bros. backlot used in countless films and television shows—in bright fumigation tents. The resulting images are seductive and surreal, transforming homes into vivid, candy-colored shells. This tension between surface charm and underlying discomfort reflects the contradictions of domestic life in a media-saturated world.

Also on view were selections from Outside the Lines, a companion series that stages stylized tableaux of housewifely misadventures. Boldly chromatic and meticulously composed, these images nod to Josef Albers and Henry Hensche in their use of color to shape narrative tone. Rosales uses domestic tropes to explore gender, performance, and visual storytelling with wit and precision.

Joaquin Trujillo (b. 1976, Los Angeles; raised in Zacatecas, Mexico) holds a BFA from Art Center College of Design. His work is in the permanent collections of SF MoMA and the Amon Carter Museum, and has been featured in exhibitions across the U.S., Mexico, the U.K., and France.

Ramona Rosales (b. 1978, Los Angeles) is known for her playful and subversive portraits of celebrities, featured in publications such as The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard Magazine, and The New York Times Magazine. She holds a BFA from Art Center College of Design.