The Chromophiliacs | Exhibition Walkthrough & Reception

Exhibition Walkthrough & Reception | The Chromophiliacs

Join us for a guided walkthrough of The Chromopiliacs, an electrifying exhibition that celebrates colour as resistance, language, and cultural expression. This special afternoon brings together exhibiting artists Maru Aponte, Yaimel López Zaldívar, and Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo in conversation with Zoë Chan, Curator at Richmond Art Gallery, and Miret Rodriguez, art historian and founder of Curated Tastes.

Through a warm and engaging dialogue, the artists and curator will reflect on their practices, their relationship to colour, and the cultural and craft traditions that shape their work. Moderated by Rodriguez, the walkthrough invites audiences to move through the exhibition while hearing directly from the artists, offering insight into both individual works and the exhibition’s broader themes.

Curated in response to David Batchelor’s Chromophobia (2000), The Chromophiliacs challenges long-standing fears and hierarchies around colour—particularly its historic marginalization within European and North American art discourse. The exhibition embraces colour as a site of pleasure, knowledge, and cultural meaning, foregrounding diverse artistic perspectives and material practices.

The walkthrough will be followed by a reception, offering time to connect with the artists, curator, and fellow attendees.

About the Exhibition

Curated by Zoë Chan

Chromophobia manifests itself in the many and varied attempts to purge colour from culture, to devalue colour, to diminish its significance. – David Batchelor.

Published at the beginning of the twenty-first century, David Batchelor’s book Chromophobia (2000) critically examined what the author termed “chromophobia”—the fear of colour. Historically marginalized and othered within European and North American culture, colour continues, even today, to be linked to notions of impurity, primitivism, and decadence. A dynamic response to his still timely thesis, The Chromophiliacs is an electrifying showcase of artists profoundly inspired by colour as well as a myriad of craft practices and cultural aesthetics. This winter, Richmond Art Gallery will explode with colour with works by Diyan Achjadi, Moozhan Ahmadzadegan, Maru Aponte, Sandeep Johal, Yaimel López Zaldívar, Laura Meza Orozco, Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo, Malina Sintnicolaas, Charlene Vickers, and Jan Wade.

About the Artists and Facilitator

Maru Aponte’s research explores the ecological, cultural, and psychological aspects of water. Working between Houston, Canada, and Puerto Rico, drafting sketches en plein air on the island as a starting point. By using colour and light as phenomenological tools, they reframe the landscape through a migratory experience and Caribbean identity.

Their paintings challenge traditional notions of watercolour, embracing its fluidity to explore the physicality of memory—often creating large-format works that allow viewers to walk around memory as if it were spatial terrain.

Aponte graduated with an MFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver in 2023. Previously, she attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and graduated from the Painting Department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. Aponte was the 2023 Emily Carr Fellowship Resident at Griffin Art Projects, North Vancouver and recently was a resident at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture 2024 and the Artist in Residence at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto in 2025.

Website: themaruaponte.com Instagram: @maruaponte

Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo was born in El Salvador and immigrated to Canada at age 11. He is a graduate of The Ontario College of Art and Design (2001) and obtained his MFA degree at Concordia University in 2008. He has exhibited extensively across Canada and internationally in venues such as The International Print Centre in New York, The Vancouver Art Gallery, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, NY. MARTE- Museo de Arte Moderno in EL Salvador and La Halle Saint Pierre in Paris, among others.

He is the recipient of The Artist Studio Award Program by the City of Vancouver (2015-2018), including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2010) and numerous others from the Canada Arts Council. He was shortlisted for the Pierre-Ayot Prize in 2009 for an emerging artist by the City of Montréal. In 2011, Castillo was the winner of the Victor-Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award for a mid-career artist in the visual arts in Canada. He is currently based in Vancouver, BC.

Website: osvaldoramirezcastillo.com Instagram: @osvaldoramirezcastillo

Yaimel López Zaldívar is a Cuban multimedia artist based in Vancouver, Canada, since 2019. His practice includes experimental animation, printmaking, design and also education. Graduated from the Superior Institute of Design in Havana (2010). He has collaborated as an artist and designer with several organizations. In 2022, he was nominated for the Lind Prize (Polygon Gallery) for his work in experimental animation.

Website: yaimelcom.wordpress.com Instagram: @yaimel1983

Miret Rodriguez is the creative director of Curated Tastes and is the former VP of VLACC. She holds an MBA in art and culture management from the Superior School of Commerce in Paris and a BA Major in Art History from UBC. Miret relies on art and the artists who make it to navigate through cultural dislocation and hybridity. Since 2020,

Miret has been interviewing Latinx artists in Canada about their immigration stories and their ways of expressing their experiences through art. This led her to curate Volver (to return, to become) in 2022 at Cityscape Community Artspace in North Vancouver.

Website: curatedtastes.art Instagram: @curatedtastes

Please note that this event will be photographed and filmed for internal documentation and promotional purposes. If you do not wish to appear in any photos or recordings, kindly inform us upon arrival.

In Partnership with Richmond Art Gallery and Curated Tastes