Eamon Ore-Giron

James Cohan is pleased to present Conversations with Snakes, Birds, and Stars, a major exhibition of new paintings and mosaic works by Eamon Ore-Giron, spanning the gallery’s 48 and 52 Walker Street locations from November 7 through December 20, 2025. This is Ore-Giron's third solo exhibition with James Cohan. The gallery will host an opening reception with the artist on Friday, November 7, from 6-8 PM, and a conversation between Ore-Giron and Aimé Iglesias Lukin, Director and Chief Curator of Art at Americas Society, on Saturday, November 8 at 2 PM.

Conversations with Snakes, Birds, and Stars represents an evolution of Ore-Giron’s ongoing Talking Shit series, which he began in 2017 while living in Guadalajara. In this next chapter, Ore-Giron deepens his artistic dialogue with the iconography of ancient Mesoamerican and Andean cultures while expanding his own pictorial inventiveness. Through bold geometric compositions and radiant color palettes, his paintings and mosaic works conjure the presence of deities such as Quetzalcoatl and Coatlicue and reinterpret artifacts including textiles, jewelry, and pottery—using them as a springboard into new realms of syncretic abstraction. 

Central to Ore-Giron's practice is an understanding that cultural symbols are living entities, constantly evolving over time and as contexts change. The artist is particularly drawn to moments of transformation, when sacred objects become secular, when indigenous knowledge is reclaimed by diasporic communities, or when ancient icons find renewed meaning. His vibrant, semi-abstract interpretations of pre-Columbian deities and artifacts acknowledge these shifting resonances, treating historical iconography not as fixed, but as material for ongoing creative exchange. Talking Shit suggests an informal, intimate conversation about both personal experience and universal understanding of cultural heritage. It is this personal relationship with the past that animates Ore-Giron’s new works, pulling shared history into the present.

The exhibition title, Conversations with Snakes, Birds, and Stars, reflects the expansive universes contained within Ore-Giron’s newest compositions, which are grounded in nature, from the subterranean to the celestial. Anchoring the exhibition is a monumental painting titled Talking Shit with Mach'acuay, the Serpent of the Milky Way, 2025, depicting a snake-shaped figure identified by the Inca in what is called a dark constellation, a figure seen in the dark patches of the Milky Way rather than by connecting stars. Ore-Giron has broken the titular serpent apart into undulating curves, destabilizing an easy reading of recognizable form through pattern and abstraction. Instead, the image recedes and resolves across the composition. The work’s merging forms and gradient colors evoke time’s passing, which unfolds in the banded shades of dawn and dusk that span the raw linen. This implication of temporality is also present in Talking Shit with My Nocturnal Garden, 2025, in which winding vines and flora are depicted in hues that recall a darkening night sky. These new paintings are characterized by an expressive quality that guides the eye through the work, much like one might walk through a garden or read the stars in the cosmos.