BETWEEN ABSURD FACES AND IMAGINED LINEAGES: BETTINA BRIZUELA AT ARTÍSTICA GALERÍA

As part of Pinta Asunción Art Week 2025, Artística Galería inaugurates the exhibition La historia imperfecta (The Imperfect Story) by artist Bettina Brizuela, a proposal that explores memory, identity, and family bonds from a poetic and critical perspective.

The exhibition is organized around an imaginary family tree built by the artist with portraits of absurd faces, anonymous figures, and incongruent kinship ties. In Brizuela’s words, it is a way of “becoming aware of my imperfect story.” To achieve this, she rescues old photographs from the 1940s, originally oil hand-painted portraits, which she acquired not for the images themselves but for their oval frames and convex glass. These materials were reused in a previous series entitled Los ojos (The Eyes).

Although initially set aside, the artist admits to having kept the photos “out of respect and guilt, with the aim of one day finding them a place in this world, to make amends for the eviction.” That place emerges now in La historia imperfecta, where the individuals portrayed are adopted and repositioned within a fictitious family tree, integrated into a new visual narrative.

The proposal extends beyond this invented lineage: the exhibition is completed by a series of paintings depicting clouds, eyes, faces, and other elements. Although they may seem disconnected, these works engage in dialogue with the central core of the installation, composing a symbolic universe tinged with the ominous. Between the absurd and the poetic, Brizuela invites viewers to reflect on the human condition today, marked by mutation, transformation, and constantly shifting bonds.

Bettina Brizuela (1969, Paraguay) is an artist and cultural manager. She lives and works in Asunción. She studied Art at the Centro de Estudios Brasileños with Livio Abramo and at the Olga Blinder Higher Institute of Art, National University of Asunción. In 2001 she received the Jacinto Rivero Prize from the Faro Foundation for Visual Arts. She has participated in several Visual Arts Biennials, as well as in group and solo exhibitions nationally and internationally. Her work has been featured in various publications such as magazines, catalogs, and visual arts books, and is held in both private collections and cultural centers. Most recently, she was awarded the AICA Paraguay Prize (2022) by the International Association of Art Critics for her solo exhibition Ahora o Nunca, held at Fundación Texo.

La historia imperfecta can be visited during Pinta Asunción Art Week, at Artística Galería, Denis Roa 1034, Asunción (Paraguay).