Abre Camino

Osmos is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in New York by Mexican-American photographer Deb Leal (b. Corpus Christi, Texas; raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) with works created from 2020 to 2023. Leal’s practice examines the cultural symbols and visual languages that shape life in the United States, with a focus on Chicano expression—how familiar icons such as cars, religious motifs, and domestic objects carry meaning across generations. “My parents took turns sleeping in the passenger seat in their annual 30+ hour drive home to Corpus Christi, TX. I watched them flip through maps and feed each other French fries as the Midwest landscape lent itself to the grandeur of an American road trip. This ritual—marked by endurance and cultural devotion—formed my foundation for visual storytelling.” (Deb Leal). Drawing on familial narratives and syncretic faith traditions such as Curanderismo to honor spiritual and vernacular imagery and reflect on representation, devotion, and transformation, the works in Abre Camino explore the passage of cultural memory through the use of color, texture, and iconography. Saturated hues and double exposures emulate the texture of memory and déjà vu—fragmented yet resilient, shifting between the everyday and the sacred—while considering endurance: how cultural rituals and symbols persist in the face of social, ecological, and technological change. As the work evolves, it asks what forms of meaning emerge as the material world transforms—when the icons that once defined identity are reinterpreted through new technologies—positioning Chicano expression as a living visual and spiritual language through which Mexican-American communities articulate regional identities within the broader U.S. cultural landscape. Through this lens, the photographs function as both an archive and offerings for sustaining collective memory and cultural continuity amid acceleration, obsolescence, and surveillance. Deb Leal is a visual artist born in Corpus Christi, Texas, and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her Chicana identity guides an observation of cultural memory, iconography, and regional nuances of the American experience. Leal was selected for the 2025 CPW-Kingston Portfolio Review and the New York Portfolio Review and has been published in The New York Times Magazine, Bon Appétit, Bloomberg, and Byline. She has exhibited at the deYoung Art Museum and the Tenderloin Museum (San Francisco), International Center of Photography (New York), Photoville (Brooklyn), and PhotoVogue’s “Panorama Latino-Americano” (Milan). Leal is currently based in Brooklyn.

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