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CHRISTIAN VINCK
ÁLBUM N° 3 / pintura S U D A K A
10.14.14 _ 12.06.14

The Venezuelan artist Christian Vinck, presents “ALBUM No. 3 / pintura S U D A K A “, (ALBUM No. 3 / S U D A K A painting) his first solo exhibition at Galeria Leme. Through various approaches to the South-American painting, the artist dismantles and revisits certain preconceived ideas of what we think about the folk painting of our continent, playing with the rules of composition and offering a personal and historical review of its configuration.

Thinking about South-America’s painting, not its origin, but his retelling, is a task that points directly to a discussion of the history of the territory in which we live in. The displacements of popular/traditional painting, in moments that are close to the primitivism of their themes, invariably ends up becoming something of a personal nature. So one builds a collection that brings together large and small stories or an inventory, which refers to the deep narratives that are intersected. These aspects are key to Christian Vinck’s exhibition.

Among the works exhibited are: the series “Cerro e Piedra” (Hill and Stone), a comprehensive review of Sierra Huelén in Santa Lucia, Chile, a set of metaphorical landscapes of the zero point of Santiago, traveling in time through different visual files which represent a survey of the utopias of Hispanic buildings, designed to be the largest defence apparatus against the natives who populated and occupied the capital’s territory.

Following the line of the previous series, there is “Trazos Nativos (La melancolia austral),” (Native Strokes. The Southern melancholy) a series of paintings based on indigenous designs of southern Chile, especially the art of the Mapuche people. These works reveal themselves through their search of patterns and certain cultural aspects of Chile, idiosyncrasy that generally determines the Chilean melancholy and that illustrates the imaginary of the Andean vanguard.

Returning to Venezuela, the artist’s birthplace, and its recent past, the series “Pisos de casa venezolana”, (Venezuelan’s house floors) a triptych with details of the floors of the artist’s home in Maracaibo or images that are reminiscent of his home, their language, as a space in which he lives and that lives in him.

Another work, related to this country, are the paintings “Alfarería venezolana,” (Venezuelan pottery) work that focuses in Spanish ceramics, introduced in Venezuela and that has evolved to become a product rooted in the culture of its people: manual work, land and fire.

Finally, the works from the series “Guston revisitado, catálogo en blanco y negro” (Guston revisited, black and white catalog), is a collection of reproductions of works by North-American painter Philip Guston, creating a catalogue of the works portrayed and their colours. However and ahead of its visual solution, this is the series that depicts more clearly the academic and pictorial tension generated between the North American and South American lines of thought.

About the artist:

Christian Vinck (Maracaibo, Venezuela, 1978) is a self-taught artist who currently devoted to painting. Vinck is characterized by being a collector of images and creator of works that depict and reinterpret documents and themes inspired by an endless variety of visual stimuli.Participant of the 30th Bienal de São Paulo, his work is also part of collections such as the Colección Mercantil Cisneros, Caracas, Venezuela and The Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas, United States.

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MARIANA MAURICO
10.14.14 _ 12.06.14

Galeria Leme presents the second solo exhibition of the Brazilian artist Mariana Mauricio. The artist works with the re-signification of imagistic memories through the interference over collected photographs.

“During the process I’m always reading, trying to make theoretical connections, and seeking similarities. I made these works thinking about domestic space, guilt and the weights that we carry. However, I only realised that after the work was done. First the work materializes, then I find meanings.

About a year ago, in addition to photographs, I started collecting things Iencountered in my daily life, mainly found along the paths I walk. Sometimes I walk seven, eight hours, whole days, seeking something indeterminate – until I find it. It has no predetermined order and no tangible rule.

My studio today looks like a hoarder’s house – and it is!

The process of finding things and photos, in that space, is a second step after collecting things in the street (The third step would be to start making combinations / assemblages). My workspace consists of 5 tables. The objects and photos go from one to the other as the combinations are being formed, in a process of simplification. There is the table of the excluded, the table of the chosen, the table of those who are already “grouped”. There is even a table for the tests that went wrong and could potentially turn into something else.

The combinations are not random to me. I think of compositional elements as line, color and texture – as language. I am interested informalism, abstract expressionism, the concretist and neo-concretist movements.

In the work “Depths of the second”, I use a linen sheet bed, with more than 100 years old (I found it in an old fabric store, it has a seam in the middle and a letter monographed on each side, holes, stains and memories) – on it, I printed the image of two hands, one squeezing the other. The image was found on a 1954 newspaper. This work is a collage, an assemblage, and an investigation of the memories of the two objects, creating a new narrative.

In the work “Wash up” – composed of two photographs – one of a man and a woman. The “scene” is a domestic drama. In the photos, framed separate, the man and the woman “classical statues” have their faces turned to each other. The “broken” woman looks at the man. The man does not look at the woman – but hides his eyes with a yellow spatula covered in cement (material with which it (statue) was created). The picture of thewoman is sustained by a tower of white porcelain plates.”

Mariana Mauricio will present a new body of work, composed by photographic installations and assemblages.

About the artist:

Mariana Mauricio was born in 1983 in Rio de Janeiro. Lives and works in London. She received her diploma in Fine Arts from Saint Martins College of Art and Design in 2007. Her work has been exhibited in a group show at London’s Saatchi Gallery and is part of collections in Brazil, Canada and Europe.