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After a six-month hiatus related to COVID-19, Muñeca Arthouse is back in a big way.
Armed with two recent 2021 Bethpage Best of Long Island Awards nominations, the popular arthouse has relocated from its original Patchogue digs to a comfy space in Blue Point.
“We’re back and happy to enjoy work and art again together as a community!” said Muñeca owner/artist Jessica Valentin (Ratgrrl).
Valentin, nominated this month for Best Artist/Painter in the Bethpage Best of Long Island Awards, explained that the move is tied to emotional and financial reasons.
“COVID-19 hit my family and the business very hard,” she said. “Losing my father to COVID in April, while having my brother gravely ill from COVID, and on a ventilator for a month — as well as being unable (or having difficulty) to qualify for most grants and loans — almost made me give up on the continuation of my dream for the gallery.”
Last month, Muñeca hosted a grand re-opening reception. The socially distant, two-day event attracted a large turnout of masked guests — with no more than eight people inside the gallery at a time, Valentin said.
Muñeca, nominated for Best Art Gallery in the Best of Long Island Awards, has worked to bring a contemporary graphic aesthetic to Long Island’s arts community. The arthouse focuses on showing artist illustrators, graffiti, street, digital and graphic, comic, POP and POP surrealist work.
The “museum gift shop” sells artist merchandise, kidrobot vinyl art toys, prints, postcards, jewelry, pottery and pins.
