Media advisory - Explore the “Roots of the Caribbean” with CCSU tomorrow
Nadolny, Marisa E. (Marketing Communications)
CCSU
Media Advisory
CCSU celebrates alumni artist and his work as part of Hispanic Heritage Month
CONTACT: Marisa Nadolny; CCSU Office of Communications; 860-832-1798, m.na...@ccsu.edu
NEW BRITAIN, CT – Explore the “Roots of the Caribbean” with Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) tomorrow as Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations continue on campus.
The Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Center and the Africana Center at CCSU will host a discussion on Thursday (Sept. 23) about artist Jorge Morales ’96 and his mural, “Roots of the Caribbean.” An impressive panel of scholars will offer insight into the mural’s context and related history from 9:25 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Alumni Hall and online via Webex.
Guest speakers include the artist himself, Professor Jorge Luis Morales Torres of the University of Puerto Rico, Ponce; Fernando Betancourt, Executive Director of the San Juan Center in Hartford; and President Daisy Cocco de Filippis of Hostos Community College among others.
About the mural
Jorge Luis Morales Torres painted the mural in 1995 for the newly established Center for Caribbean Studies at CCSU (now the Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Center). Morales was a graduate student at CCSU at the time, and Ronald Fernandez, the center’s founding director, asked Morales to paint a scene that celebrated the Caribbean and welcomed students and the public to the University.
In his work, Morales incorporates images of the sea and the countryside to recreate scenes reminiscent of Caribbean open-air markets, celebrations such as Carnival and Three Kings Day, as well as the history of sugar production and enslavement and liberation and freedom.
The painting also includes several historical figures. Among them:
- Samuel “Daddy” Sharpe, leader of the 1831 Jamaican slave revolt and forerunner of the Jamaican labor movement
- Eugenio María de Hostos, Ramón Emeterio Betances, and Mariana Bracetti, organizers of the Grito de Lares, the first independence movement of Puerto Rico in 1868
- José Martí, the Cuban poet, journalist, professor, and publisher who is considered a Cuban national hero because of his role in the liberation of his country.
- Pedro Albizu Campos, founder of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party
- Dr. Eric E. Williams, noted Caribbean historian and the first Prime Minister of an independent Trinidad and Tobago
About the artist
Jorge Luis Morales Torre is a Puerto Rican painter and instructor in the Department of Humanities at the University of Puerto Rico at Ponce. He holds an MSED in Art Education from Central Connecticut State University and a BA in Arts and Humanities from the Catholic University of Puerto Rico. He studied Fine Arts at the University of Perugia, Italy and painting at the Students’ Art League of New York.