MANUELA SOLANO’S PICTORIAL UNIVERSE ARRIVES AT THE CAAC

Manuela Solano (Mexico City, Mexico, 1987) arrives at the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo with Alien Queen / Strange Paradise, an exhibition curated by Gilberto González that brings together more than thirty large-scale paintings. Most of these works were produced over a seven-year period and depict real and fictional figures drawn from turn-of-the-millennium pop culture that have remained embedded in the artist’s memory and lived experience.

Painting directly with her hands, Solano revisits the popular aesthetic languages of the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. Her work incorporates recognizable references to music, fashion, cinema, television, the early internet, and mass media culture. In this sense, her production operates as a meeting point between the alternative and the mainstream, as well as between local experience and global cultural circulation.

The portrayed characters appear to channel the artist’s own experiences and serve as the starting point for a reconstruction of memory, evoking moments associated with adolescence, the transition into adulthood, affection, loss, and introspection. Central to Solano’s artistic narrative is the loss of her eyesight at the age of twenty-six following an HIV-related infection that was treated negligently. From that moment onward, the artist developed a practice in which memory and visual culture become deeply intertwined.

Technically, her paintings accumulate dense layers of pigment that generate visible traces, revealing an intimate and emotional process marked by the tension between fragility and resilience. The works function as symbolic self-portraits that reflect upon the ongoing and evolving construction of identity. Through humor and irony, Solano also extends her inquiry toward the viewer, inviting audiences to recognize their own cultural icons and to question socially imposed roles.

Manuela Solano: Alien Queen / Strange Paradise will remain on view until November 8, 2026, at the CAAC (Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo), Américo Vespucio 2, Seville, Spain.