In Light of Innocence
Raúl de Nieves
In Light of Innocence marks Raúl de Nieves’s first solo institutional show in New York City, featuring a new body of work that transforms the entire Main Hall of Pioneer Works into an immersive, cathedral-like environment that conjures personal reflection and collective imagination.
Known for his use of modest, everyday materials, de Nieves explores aesthetic beauty while challenging its historical and religious underpinnings. His stained glass windows reference Western religious traditions—particularly, those of Catholicism—and ultimately reimagine places of worship as sites of transformation, in spite of their legacies of violence and exclusion. In Light of Innocence presents the site-specific installation of 50 faux stained glass panels, fitted throughout the windows that line the Main Hall as well as a monumental lightbox mural.
In conjunction with his reinterpretation of Catholic and Mexican folkloric motifs, de Nieves uses tarot’s rich symbolism and archetypes as a framework for imagining new relationships with the future. Unlike traditional religious hierarchies, tarot allows for multiple perspectives and characters to hold equal power. In the same vein, his windows resist rigid meaning by blending figurative and abstract imagery into a dreamlike, open-ended vocabulary. While tarot is a key reference, de Nieves also incorporates text fragments from memory, reflecting his belief in the poetic potential of everyday language. Throughout his works, words function as both image and idea—simultaneously literal and symbolic.
The artist’s process of turning humble materials into radiant artworks mirrors spiritual metamorphosis, offering new ways to experience time and light. Constructed from materials such as paper, wood, glue, tape and, most prominently, colored acetate, his window panels create shifting fields of kaleidoscopic color. As light filters through them, the space becomes dynamic and alive, changing by the hour as the sun moves. This fluidity is central to the work, echoing how we continually revise our understanding of ourselves and the world.
Residing at the far end of the Main Hall, de Nieves’s lightbox mural features three arches, a horse, and a skeleton framed by various portraits. In tarot, the skeleton signifies not physical death but transformation—an end that makes space for renewal—while the horse, a symbol of strength and movement, becomes the force that carries us through change. Together, these archetypes create a sanctuary where personal reflection and shared connection coexist. In Light of Innocence invites viewers to embrace change not as loss, but as renewal—a passage that leads to deeper insight and inner strength.
About the Artist
Raúl de Nieves (born in 1983, in Michoacan, Mexico; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) is a multimedia artist, performer and musician whose wide-ranging practice investigates notions of beauty and transformation. De Nieves’ visual symbolism draws on the motifs of classical Catholicism and Mexican vernacular to create his own unique mythology. Through processes of accumulation and adornment, the artist transforms readily available materials into spectacular objects, which he then integrates into immersive narrative environments.
Recent solo institutional exhibitions include and imagine you are here, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD (2023); A window to the see, a spirit star chiming in the wind of wonder..., Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA (2023); The Treasure House of Memory, ICA Boston, Boston, MA (2021); Eternal Return & the Obsidian Heart, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Miami, FL (2021) and Reemerge the Zero Begins Your Life, Eternal is Your Light, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA (2020). De Nieves has participated in numerous group exhibitions including those at Hauser & Wirth, The High Line, MoMA PS1, the 2017 Whitney Biennial, K11 Foundation, Documenta 14, Performa 13, ICA Philadelphia, The Watermill Center, The Kitchen, Artists Space and numerous other venues. His work is included in public collections at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.