"EL PESO DE LAS ALAS": CATALINA MENA'S WORK AT ANINAT GALLERY REFLECTS DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
From August 1st to September 22 at the Galería Isabel Aninat, Chile, the Chilean artist Catalina Mena presents The Weight of the Wings, a work that builds on the contrast between both elements (wings and knives) and a subtle handling of the linked pieces to the domestic imaginary, makes a critical reflection on domestic violence.
In relation to Mena's work, the prolific Chilean anthropologist and writer Sonia Montecino wrote: "The phrase 'A woman's best friend is a good knife' seems to accompany much of Catalina Mena's work. A woman with a knife restores the image of the old female gestures nested in the kitchen: cut, peel, carve, peel, taste the food; but a woman with a knife as an artifact of defense and attack, is a figure that tenses and removes the notion of meekness that tradition assigns to her gender. "In addition to allude to the everyday and domestic, the artist takes elements of Greek mythology as the myth of Icarus and Daedalus as a metaphor of search and necessary transgression that must be had to reach new knowledge and paradigms.The wings of Mena represent in yearning for freedom and ascent that the woman has been waiting for as long as she can remember.
As for knives, they directly represent violence.
The weight of the wings is an extensive sample of the recent research work of Catalina Mena where domestic violence is presented in a subtle way in objects with great iconographic load.
The exhibition will be until September 22 in the Main Gallery of the Galería Isabel Aninat, in Chile.
