Zulu Padilla: Flyways

October 31 – November 3, 2025

A solo presentation of work by Zulu Padilla

Supported in part by SoMad
Curated by Sarah Grass and Christine Stiver

Opening reception October 30, 2025, 6-8pm

Press Release

For migrating birds, flyways are more than just thoroughfares—they are instinctual pathways of safety, offering neotropical birds reliable places to rest and feed along their journey. In Zulu Padilla’s Flyways, his large-scale collages tell the overlapping stories of migrating birds and queer communities seeking crucial intersections for renewal. A birder himself, Padilla lovingly observes and photographs the annual migration of several bird species through Prospect Park, Brooklyn. In the same park he also documents decomposing condoms at popular gay cruising sites. Padilla’s formal approach to image-making weaves non-linear narratives that are both archaeological and metaphorical.

Embedded in Padilla’s collages are two foundational forms with different movement trajectories: rivers and orbits. Rivers of warblers, sparrows and waxwings circumnavigate the orbital shapes of the condoms. The energetic quality of the birds in motion implies a spirited but meandering path. The condoms on the other hand appear to float across the wall like celestial bodies with their own gravitational pull. These nearly perfect circles sink into the earth, drawing us into their disappearing rings.

By combining site-specific images of migration and intimacy, Padilla draws us into these physical, sexual, and emotional flyways. The resulting work is both grounding and exuberant. Padilla celebrates the freedom to sink or soar, stay or leave, and if we so choose, return to the same sacred spaces again and again. As neotropical birds prepare to head south for the winter, Underdonk invites you to celebrate the fall migration at the opening reception for Zulu Padilla’s Flyways on October 30th, from 6 to 8p.

Zulu Padilla’s work has been featured in residencies, publications, and exhibitions across Colombia and the United States, including the 40th Salón Nacional de Artistas (Bogotá), Galería Santa Fe/Sala Alterna (Bogotá), Museo del Caribe (Barranquilla), BHQFU (New York), Spring/Break Art Show (New York), Street Road Art Space (Pennsylvania), and SoMad Art Space (New York), among others. In 2022, he received a Brooklyn Arts Council Community Arts Grant for his project Everything is Migrating. Padilla lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, and is currently part of the latest MFA cohort at Brooklyn College.

SoMad

The Last One To Be Named, pictured above, among others, was created in collaboration with SoMad during Padilla’s 2025 artist residency.

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