Daniel Correa Mejía: Harmony and flow

Contributed by Will Maddoxx / Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about surface. Daniel Correa Mejía’s show “El amor se esconde como un animal salvaje” (“Love hides like a wild animal”) at P.P.O.W encouraged me to think harder. The paintings are oil on jute, and that surface’s rough, toothy quality is a very active ingredient in the viewing experience. Mejía himself responds to it with the same emotion – generally speaking, love – that his figures show one another. As the wispy jute falls back and comes forward, swirls, curves, and delicate brushstrokes cooperate. In El viaje de Pan, for instance, a small curl made by a thin stroke ensconces another curl rendered by the hair of the jute. It’s a quietly stunning effect.

Mejía places a premium on harmony and flow. A mountain slopes into a ravine, which becomes a bird, which fades into water, where two figures softly emerge, their hands becoming a goat. Their apparent affection is so replete that it radiates from their bodies into the landscape. The dominant emotional inflection could be interpreted as romantic, but Mejia also wants to impart a degree of ambiguity to widen the embrace.

The paintings Soltar and Las voces are similar in composition and content but quite different in the emotional impressions they make. In the former, a figure nuzzles a bird, clearly a protective and intimate gesture. The latter presents a group of figures arranged like a nesting doll – insular, yes, but also encompassing family, friends, or community. Mejía slows down the way we think about relationships and brings the viewer into a world where love and tenderness prevail.

“Daniel Correa Mejía: El amor se esconde como un animal salvaje,” P.P.O.W, 392 Broadway, New York, NY. Through July 31, 2026.

About the author: Will Maddoxx is a New York-based artist from Nashville.