There’s a reason for the vibrant colors in Sarahi Zacatelco’s self-portrait. “That’s how I feel now,” Zacatelco said. “I’m a survivor,” she said, and those colors mean “freedom” — freedom from a bad situation she left behind, and freedom to accept the support of others she has found in New Haven. It’s also a celebration of the freedom “to work on myself and to work on my art. I left everything behind. All the depression. All the hard feelings. Everything.” It’s the same impulse that led her to make a painting of a pair of wings. “Now I’m flying,” she said. “Now I’m free.”
An outpouring of exuberance defines “Viva La Vida,” Zacalteco’s first solo art show, up now at Blue Orchid on Court Street for the next few weeks. It’s there in the kinetic brushwork on the canvases, and the fullness of the designs. But most of all it’s in the colors Zacatelco chooses, whether it’s a portrait of herself, of a place remembered from childhood, or a still life of a plant.
Brian Slattery Photo
Zacatelco.
Zacatelco’s feeling of freedom emerged, she said, about a year ago, “when I started working with the community, and when I started working on my podcast.” She works at the kitchen at Tomatillo — “I make tacos for everybody!” she said, with a laugh — but also puts in time to organize the arts community and earlier this summer was instrumental in throwing Fair Haven’s first-ever guelaguetza, a celebration rooted in the culture of Oaxaca, where Zacatelco is from.
It’s fitting, then, that Zacatelco’s definition of freedom includes honoring her own personal and cultural roots. One rich painting evokes her grandmother’s garden in Mexico. “She used to have all these beautiful flowers,” Zacatelco said. Smaller paintings nearby depict other plants that figured in her upbringing. One is of a cactus; another is of ayahuasca, a mushroom with psychedelic properties that is also part of a deep cultural practice in southern Mexico. For Zacatelco, they are all connected — the natural landscape of Oaxaca, her family’s history, and the culture she comes from. A similar impulse led her to create a painting focused on the form of watermelon, of coffee, of mangos. Another portrait depicts Frida Kahlo. “We’re both survivors,” Zacatelco said of her connection to Kahlo. “We’re still working, we’re still surviving the pains that we have.”
She made all of the paintings since coming to New Haven from Harlem. “It was hard for me to start over again, making art,” Zacatelco said of moving to New Haven. But as she created pieces, she realized she had more than enough to have a show.
That was when she crossed paths with fellow artist Roseprimavere Jacques, who had done her own solo exhibit at Blue Orchid in June and had begun organizing shows at the restaurant for other artists in town, starting with Sylvia Yanez, who showed work at the Court Street spot in July.
Jacques and Flora.
Jacques came to New Haven from Florida; in addition to being an artist, she’s a clinical social worker with a speciality in trauma, and she took up an offer to travel around to help hospital staff in other parts of the country. She landed at Yale-New Haven Hospital.
“I started in January, and I’m still here,” she said with a laugh.
She had made the acquaintance of Michael Flora, who owns Blue Orchid with his husband, chef Natthawut Tipjak. “We started talking about art and creativity,” Jacques said, and “spontaneously Mike invited me to do an exhibition here during Arts and Ideas.” Jacques saw “how the customers were drawn to the project, and we came up with the idea of creating a wall gallery for the restaurant.” Part of the idea was to make a space for New Haven’s emerging artists to exhibit their work, but also to “make art accessible to every customer here.”
“Rose is everywhere,” Flora said. “I’ve never met anyone who has been here such a short period of time and already knows everyone.”
“The way I found the artists is the way I live my life,” Jacques said. “In a way, art saved me. I’m self-taught, as a way of self care” but found that her art “resonated with other people. My art is about stories of resilience. I’m interested in talking to people and finding out what keeps them going. Everybody has a great story. It’s amazing.”
Flora, who is an accountant by trade, said that “color and art and what to put on the walls was never my best gift.” But he did not like the restaurant having one huge, blank wall, and thought, “I would love to have ever-changing art on it.” He noted that “we have a lot of regular customers who just love that this is happening.” He considers the gallery to be good for business, “especially when the artists have a following.… it’s great for our new Covid-baby of a restaurant.”
Tipjak and Flora opened Blue Orchid in December 2020 to showcase Tipjak’s food (he has a degree in food sciences from Thailand, where he is from) and business was — predictably — slow at first. But “once the state opened up, business started getting better and better,” Flora said.
Jacques and Flora noted that word is starting to get out among New Haven’s artists about the opportunity to show work at Blue Orchid. “Very soon we’re going to start our call to artists so everybody knows what is required.” She and Flora are both sanguine about what’s next for the series.
“We have a good artist community in South Florida but nothing compared to here, the way that artists support each other,” Jacques said. Flora said that sense of support is echoed in the business community. In May, he noted, the restaurant had its pride flag stolen a few times, and felt overwhelmed by the support he got from the city. “Businesses came out checking in on us, making sure we were all right. We opened in New Haven because we saw what the community was like, and we’re so happy to be here.”
