DEL CASTILLO IN A GROUP SHOW ON EMPTINESS
By Álvaro de Benito
The Madrid-based gallery Monte Esquinza 36 presents El Dorado, an exhibition curated by Karen García and Juliette Deschamps centered around action art, featuring photographic works by Fernanda del Barrio (Mexico, 1995), accompanied on this occasion by Marine Lanier (Valence, France, 1981) and Chen Qiulin (Wanxian, China, 1975).
Del Barrio presents in this group show Ser Isla, Permanecer en el ir y venir de las distancias, El peso del vacío se transforma en levedad, Ensayos para llenar un vacío, Algunas formas de vacío, and Delimitar el vacío. All of these are photographic compositions created in 2022 and 2023, in which the artist uses photography as an instrumental vehicle to conceptualize existential themes such as emptiness and distance, from an intimate perspective and experience.
Each piece appears in an allegorical manner, constructed from elements that manifest with a utility in both personal and social understanding, individual and collective. In part, Del Barrio prepares her work from the conception of a poetic, visual art, which stems from an imaginary that takes form through gesticulation and bodily expressiveness.
The works of French artist Marine Lanier and Chinese artist Chen Qiulin also follow this dynamic of photography as a tool for visualizing and expressing the dreamlike. With a proposal more focused on space as place and memory as dreamlike recollection, they also engage in a dialogue with Del Barrio’s work on the concept of absence and emptiness.
There is a certain dreamlike, unreal nature that at times borders on surreal composition or the development of an action in an imaginary setting. El Dorado seems to become a recreation of emptiness or a celebration of a necessary and essential failure in order to capture memory and reach a sense of fulfillment.
El Dorado can be seen until September 22 at Galería Monte Esquinza 36, Monte Esquinza 36, Madrid (Spain).
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