[ad_1]
Eighteen years elapsed between the day a folder labeled with the identify of Emilia Gutiérrez (1928–2003) got here into the fingers of curator Rafael Cippolini and the materialization of this in depth exhibition. The delay is comprehensible. As fascinating because the artist’s work could also be, they’re additionally troublesome to digest: Detached alike to the 20 th century’s avant-gardes and to the social conflicts of an Argentina on the verge of dictatorship, her model of realism doesn’t search the complicity of the gaze, however relatively plunges into her inside world.
Gutiérrez had seven solo exhibitions throughout her lifetime, but it was solely in 2004, a 12 months after her dying, {that a} ebook on her work was revealed. She was nicknamed “La flamenca,” in reference to her obsessive research of artists akin to Bosch and Van Eyck, in addition to to some Flemish-leaning options of her work, together with her palette, her fondness for small-format oil work, the incisive gestures of her characters, and the unusual ambiance that surrounds her scenes.
Gutiérrez’s is a candid, accessible sort of realism, interesting to a wider sensibility regardless of a comparatively restricted set of assets. She websites her compositions on flat surfaces in delicate variations of greens, blues, and ochers, with the unwavering confidence of somebody who at all times paints the identical image. A number of of her work depict ladies in a world suffering from grotesque, dim, and at instances even hostile creatures. In Loly, 1974, a faint glimmer of need haunts the eyes of an extravagantly clothed girl seated at a bar, the place, judging by her expression and posture, she appears to have finally discovered refuge.
Translated from Spanish by Michele Faguet.
[ad_2]
