Artist talk for Upstate Art Weekend: Sunday, June 28 at 2pm.

This May and June, Distortion Society presents Larrupin, a solo exhibition by installation artist Josué Morales Urbina. Born in Guatemala and now based in New York, his practice centers on the experience of not fully belonging to either place—what he calls transcultural displacement or dépaysement, a longing for home within a foreign environment. In Larrupin, Morales Urbina works with materials ranging from the utilitarian to the organic to explore ideas of home, ephemerality, and connection through language, taste, and sensory experience. Curated by Gallery Director Michelle Silver, the exhibition opens Saturday, May 9, 2026

Morales Urbina relocated to the United States in his twenties. In the U.S., he is often asked to account for his origins; in Guatemala, his accent, clothing, and lived experience mark him as other. He describes himself as a “hidden immigrant” or someone who appears to belong yet remains outside. Within this tension, art becomes a site for constructing a sense of home. Informed by Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of the Third Space, his work inhabits an in-between condition where identity is continually negotiated and hybridity emerges as both friction and generative force. Everyday materials—zip ties, rubber bands, drinking straws—are activated as structural agents, shaping the work through their inherent tensions, fragilities, and transformations. Edible and biodegradable elements such as mandarin peels introduce domestic associations and layered cultural histories that shift in relation to the viewer’s own experiences.

The exhibition takes its title from larrupin, a lively, old-fashioned term that in British usage denotes something excellent, while in American vernacular, particularly in Southern and Western regions, it describes something especially delicious. Morales Urbina is drawn to this semantic migration: the way language travels, transforms, and settles into the register of flavor and pleasure. In the movement-based installation Qualia Series, mandarin peels function as both medium and form, engaging the senses and prompting an embodied encounter without requiring physical interaction. Larrupin captures the joie de vivre that animates Morales Urbina’s practice: a spirit of indulgence and vitality that moves fluidly between making and sensing.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born in Guatemala City and currently based in the New York metropolitan area, Josué Morales Urbina is an award-winning installation and sculpture artist who has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally. An alumnus of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, he has participated in residencies at the Vermont Studio Center; La Napoule Art Foundation’s Résidence d’Artiste Internationale; Centrum (Washington); GoggleWorks Center for the Arts; Byrdcliffe Arts Colony; NARS Foundation; the SVA Artist Residency Program; ChaNorth; Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity; and the Textile Arts Center’s AIR 16.

His most recent solo exhibition, “Interstices” was presented at Brenau University Galleries in early 2026. In 2024, he was awarded the Jersey City Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship, and in 2025 he received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts, with a minor in Art History and Criticism, from the University of Texas at San Antonio. josuemoralesurbina.com

EXHIBITION DETAILS

Larrupin will be on view at Distortion Society, 155 Main Street, Beacon, NY from May 9, 2026 through July 2, 2026. The gallery is free and open to the public. There will be an opening reception on May 9, 2026 from 7-9pm.

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