“Montero’s Montuno” by Miguel Trelles, created with charcoal, ink and acrylic on canvas.

“Kaka p’al ahau” by Miguel Trelles, made with charcoal, ink and acrylic on paper.

“Otoñal Wu-Chu” by Miguel Trelles, made with charcoal, ink and acrylic on paper.

Miguel Trelles’ artwork, which blends pre-Columbian and Chinese art will be on display from Oct. 9 to Nov. 1 in Maloney Hall in the exhibit “Chino-Latino: Barbarian Brush.” The Latin American, Latino and Caribbean Center (LALCC) is the organizer of the event, while the Central Connecticut Art Gallery, Africana Center, Modern Languages Department, Confucian Institute and Office of Diversity and Equity are co-sponsors.

On Oct. 15, there was an “Artist Talk” from 12:15 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. in Maloney Hall Room 127. During his presentation at the “Artist Talk,” Trelles talked about his background and the reasoning behind his artwork.

He uses the term “barbarian,” as Westerners used it to describe Chinese art. Trelles said he connected with Chinese art because of “linear rhythm.” Many of his paintings involve colorful, tropical images with traditional Chinese strokes. Many of the characters he draws have traditional Chinese composition but with features of non-Han. He described hues as important and that his drawings are very saturated.

He frequently works with ink in his paintings, which is something he got into through comics like Superman. He also uses charcoal, oil on linen and acrylic on canvas, among other materials to create his paintings.

Trelles talked about the history of the Americas and China stating that “Columbus wanted to get to Asia through the Americas, while I wanted to get to the Americas through Asia.”

He hopes that in this century there will be a larger focus on the relationship between the Americas and China.

He continued to show doodles that depict traditional Chinese and Mayan drawings. Another slide contained pictures of his working table, with several sketches, showing the hard work of an artist.

Another drawing shows an Asian version of “La Rosa de Guadeloupe,” a famous symbol that symbolizes the Virgin Mary from Mexico.

Some of the drawings are scenarios of ‘what ifs,’ with one of his paintings depicting European colonizers as being mostly female, speculating on what their relation towards the natives could have been.

Many of his sketches contain relatively modern objects like planes. He said he had trouble finding objects that would make his drawings relatable to people, due to most of the most famous Latino and Chinese paintings being from an era long ago. Back in that time, many of the objects had featured things like donkeys, which are not as common today.

Throughout the years, his Chino-Latino artwork has been exhibited at the Gabarron Foundation in Spain, El Museo Del Barrio in New York and the Museo de Arte de Ponce in San Juan, as well as in cities such as Lima, Buenos Aires and Paris. He received a Bachelors in art history at Brown University and a Master of Fine Arts from Hunter College. Since 2006, Trelles has been a curator of the art exhibit “Borimix,” an art collection that fuses his native Puerto Rican origins with that of other Caribbean countries such as Cuba and the Dominican Republic. He currently teaches as an assistant professor in visual arts at Hunter College.