Whether adventuring around town or exploring the coastline on his boat, local artist, Gustavo Oviedo draws and literally collects inspiration from all over sunny South Florida – both by land and sea. Currently, Oviedo has a  mural at Young at Art Museum (YAA) titled Limulidae. It is an abstract mural that incorporates lots of his ideas about marine environments, horseshoe crabs, and reusing materials.

Take a  closer look, you may be surprised with what you’ll discover in the giant abstract art…

After encountering a 450 million year old organism a few years ago still living among us, he became increasingly drawn to marine creatures and their environments. Oviedo became a sort of “accidental environmentalist” collecting discarded objects the bay and transforming them into artwork. He recycles his own materials and artworks for scraps, taking bits and pieces and reimplementing them into his art making process to create something completely new.

During the past 3 years, Oviedo explored the marine environments in South Florida and learned a lot about them and himself in the process.  These experiences provided the artist the desire to research specific topics. “Limulidae” means horseshoe crab in Latin. Oviedo chose this as the title for the show because it symbolizes the inspiration and influences for the exhibition. The mural is not a figurative representation but rather a subconscious congregation of related ideas on the wall.

When I saw a horseshoe crab for the first time it made me wonder about it, so I looked it up and found out it s a 450 million year old organism, it was shocking to find out that such an old organism was still around and living among us. This show is my way to share some of my learnings through some of the objects that I found during my nature trips and abstract representations of what i ve experienced. Oviedo

YAA’s Bedlam Lorenz Assembly (BLA) consists of artists and innovators with an eclectic background who facilitate the production, presentation, and integration of contemporary art exhibitions and events within the museum, and the community at large. See a survey of some of the most cutting edge local and international art at BLA’s Annual Interest in addition to shows throughout the year highling artists who are changing the way we see the world.