AFRO-CUBAN SPIRITUALITY AT PAMM: DIASPORIC HERITAGE AND CONTEMPORARY VISION

Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) presents El Monte, a solo exhibition of new work by Miami-born twins and photographers Elliot and Erick Jiménez, opening August 28, 2025. The show immerses viewers into the world of Lucumí, its sacred cosmologies, the twins’ lived experiences, and the complicated history of Western art.

As identical twins and first-generation Cuban Americans, the lives of Elliot and Erick Jiménez are permeated with a sense of duality. Early on, their upbringing was shaped by a blending of influences, including Lucumí diasporic beliefs, also known as Santería or Regla de Ocha—a syncretic Afro-Caribbean religion that emerged in Cuba in the late 18th and 19th centuries, melding elements of colonial Spanish Catholicism with West African Yoruba traditions. A unique and diverse cultural narrative emerges from this interweaving of two unlikely theologies; a transcultural dialogue that has become central to the artists’ visual interpretations of the folklore, cosmologies, mysticism, and deities of their diasporic heritage.

These Lucumí divinities are the protagonists in the twins’ regal and surreal photographs. Referred to as “shadow figures,” the subjects’ bodies are covered in paint, suits, or masks, rendering them anonymous, mirroring the ways in which followers and practices of Santería have long existed in hiding due to fear of persecution. The artists subvert the darkness often associated with shadows into a commanding presence. Devoid of defined identities, the faceless figures are stripped down to a pure and enigmatic essence, embodying a universal power in their namelessness, relatable to all.

Using in-camera techniques, costuming, and set design––including garments by award-winning fashion designer Willy Chavarria—the Jiménez twins draw from Western art movements and incorporate impressionistic approaches to light, texture, and atmosphere. The resulting images occupy an ambiguous space between painting and photography, much like how the shadow figures appear caught in a state of hybridization, somewhere between the sacred and the contemporary. This dreamlike visual language draws viewers into a fantasy world that reflects the transculturation of the artists’ childhoods, offering new ways of seeing and understanding the layered complexities of cultural duality.

Taking its name from Cuban etnographer Lydia Cabrera’s 1954 foundational text—often referred to as “the Santería bible” and only translated into English as recently as 2023—the exhibition invites visitors to journey into a monte, or forest, in the middle of the night. Along the way, visitors encounter the shadow figures within their natural environment alongside reappropriated 17th century furniture, antiques, found materials, and sculptural elements. At the heart of El Monte sits a large-scale Ceiba tree trunk structure, prompting visitors to choose their own path—left or right—revealing hidden entry points that lead into a two-room chamber, part forest, part chapel. The dimly lit installation becomes a symbolic twin womb; a sanctuary where wonder, ritual, and personal history are interwoven, while grounded in a larger cultural legacy that has remained largely untold.

“This exhibition has the capacity to speak to our community in a way that we haven’t communicated before. Elliot and Erick’s work builds a bridge between Miami’s Caribbean communities, its religious and spiritual practices, and those of their ancestors. The gallery is transformed into something mysterious and whimsical, giving the viewer a chance to experience photography in a new and unique way,” said PAMM Associate Curator Maritza M. Lacayo.

El Monte is on view from August 28, 2025 to February 8, 2026, at Pérez Art Museum Miami, 1103 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, Florida (United States).

*Cover image: Elliot and Erick Jiménez, El Monte (Ibejí), 2024. Archival pigment print. Image courtesy of the artists and Spinello Projects.