Odalis Valdivieso

The series on which Valdivieso has been working for about three years is based on a double need. On the one hand, that of inquiring into geometric abstraction, and re-examining the association of this trend to modernism. On the other, the need to liberate the narrative component, which is often oppressive insofar as it predetermines the formal orientation of the work. The process therefore becomes the protagonist in the series Paper Folding.

Valdivieso uses one of the first digital cameras that appeared on the market in the 1990s as a point of departure for her work. The pixelation in these small-format photographs becomes an abstraction which is then subjected to long processes of manipulation including the repeated distortion of the original through manual and digital processes (the images are twisted, painted in gouache, and scanned, later to be modified in a computer). The process may be repeated indefinitely. Once the artist is satisfied with the result, these whimsical paper objects are folded, creating the illusion of their being framed paintings.

Folding paper constitutes the artist’s attempt to free the photographic medium from the generalized notion of realism traditionally associated to it. The long process of multiple interventions based on a system of multiplication and manipulation implies a constant postponement of the meaning, in which the element of playfulness replaces any romantic aspiration to transcendence of the work per se, and this liberating process thus becomes established as the ultimate sense of the work. The end work-object, imbued with great visual beauty, highlights the role of the process as the essential core of this series, which envisions creation as a generic process that rejects modernist archetypes still exerting a decisive influence on artistic parameters, such as originality, perpetuation, and the delimitation of genre and medium.

The series, currently on exhibit at Alejandra Von Hartz and Dimensions Variable galleries, and at the Miami Art Museum as part of the exhibition “Miami New Works”, is composed of forty-five works which may be viewed in their entirety only as a portfolio.