Pasaje del olvido
Barbara Gross Galerie, Munich
7 November 2019 - 18 January 2020
Pasaje del olvido presents a continuation of Sol Calero’s recent body of work, immersed in the notion of memory and its place in the act of painting. In her trajectory, Calero has questioned the idea of projection in many different ways: how do cultures imagine and present themselves? How do we see and describe others? What expectations do we have of places and societies labelled as exotic? Memories are not just recollections of the past, but also projections of what we have built that past to be. It may be idealized, it may be exaggerated, maybe suppressed; but it is always an abstraction. Sometimes memory fails us, and our reminiscence isn’t linear and complete, but fragmented and contrasted in intensity. Personal memory is anchored in sensorial experiences, impactful events, and emotional magnitude, so the images that result in the narrative of that memory have the same kind of texture. In Calero’s new paintings, this tonality has taken over: the elements coexist in different kinds of scale and hierarchy, while backgrounds, figures and patterns are juxtaposed in a sort of irrational harmony. Amongst snakes, dominoes, landscape bubbles, floral wallpaper and pieces of furniture, her images appear as blurry but detailed accounts of a dream.
Text by Sira Pizà
Photos by Wilfried Petzi
