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An exhibition focusing on femininity through the works of non gender, male and female contemporary artists.
Artists: Paula Cortazar (Mexico), Louise Fishman (US), Caio Marcolini (Brazil), Gabriele Novoa (El Salvador), Lily Phung (France), Lauren Seiden (US) and Aria XYX (El Salvador).
Opening reception 9th March – til 15th April 2023
The stone sculptures of Mexican artist Paula Cortazar are an ode to Nature. She interprets the hidden patterns from a tree or a river, through drawing and engraving directly on stones that she recovers. Through her sensitive and respectful view of natural materials, she questions our links with the environment and our imprint on it, while affirming her legitimacy as a sculptor.
Louise Fishman, an American figure of abstract expressionism, established herself as an artist from the 70’s-80’s by producing large format paintings that address the gesturality and grid composition. As a member of the radical feminist Redstockings movement, she became interested in the queer movement and made her mark through her art by exploring questions of identity. She has made a name for herself in the male-dominated field of abstract painting, offering a new perspective as she draws inspiration from traditional female tasks such as weaving and knitting to create her paintings.
Caio Marcolini, a Brazilian artist, creates metal sculptures through a weaving process that he developed himself. His gesture shapes the wire little by little, until he creates precise forms between abstraction and realism. His « Bilateral » series is inspired by the female genitalia associated with fertility, a tribute to the female figures in his family.
The embroideries of emerging Salvadoran artist Gabriela Novoa address the physical and psychological aspects of female sexuality, seeing her practice as an instrument for normalizing sexuality and the nude, she aims to provoke conversation on themes as intimate as they are political. Inspired by the traditional embroidery used by women during the dictatorship, she wants to show the female body as a subversive and engaged image, far from the dominant representations.
Lily Phung, a French artist known for her subversive and nostalgic paintings from the 50’s, applies several layers of paint in her canvases that offer as many levels of reading. Her quirky, feminist universe addresses issues of family, youth and women from a socio-political prism as she hijacks advertising codes by using text in her paintings that testify to her commitment.
The sculptures of American artist Lauren Seiden, explore the sensitivity of the material, and the graphite she applies to the paper transforms the medium, which becomes metallic in appearance, like an armour. She reveals the duality of paper between fragility and resistance, where the body appears in the artist’s gesture.
The art of Aria XYX, a non-binary artist from El Salvador, approaches the body as a territory prey to sexo-affective ties. Through his series of dolls, composed of 27 pieces that refer to the same number of people with whom he has had sexual/emotional ties, he undertakes a process of introspection that questions the dynamics of power and possession in emotional relationships.