"SINAPSIS" IN WASHINGTON
Since November 6 at the Argentine embassy in Washington, USA, visual artist Cotty Oxenford presents her project Sinapsis. Already exhibited in Buenos Aires in the OdA (Art Offices) space and within the framework of the specialized photography artfair BAphoto 2019, the exhibition explores an intimate relationship with the photographic device and the need for a genuine language for artistic production.
Cotty Oxenford uses photography as an appropriation device. The photographed objects are resignified in the plane and assume new connotations. In the case of Sinapsis, the artist takes a series of feathers and catches them in the air. The feathers, like bodies that flicker - appear and disappear in front of the selective gaze - are suspended. It is in this escape of space and time where the feathers do not travel in any direction, that Oxenford transforms objects into graphemes of an intimate alphabet. "The recognizable forms of the feathers, sometimes more explicit, sometimes more doubtful, like the Dantesque luminaries also dispute the dramatic central light as a symbolic category, not from the mythical lightning but confined in the minor, abbreviated vibration, almost within reach, delicate, domestic,” writes Eduardo Stupía in the curatorial text.
On the other hand, Sinapsis is the representation of a process. Oxenford captures a persuit, a kind of need that externalizes and materializes in this series of images. It is in this sense that her artwork shows the relevance of developing a sincere language. The Argentine artist does not fall into traps or resources that ensure a "work value." Quite the opposite: her work responds to herself and his sensitivity to a vital transition. This constellation of feathers that appears as a closed and unique Oxenford system, however, invites the viewer to the appropriation and reconstitution of another alphabet that reaches other corners than words.
About the artist
Cotty Oxenford was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her first contact with art, she says, was with the piano. She has a degree in Political Science and International Relations (Universidad Católica Argentina). During her Master's Degree in Social Sciences and Arts at Columbia University, she held a Photography and Development workshop at the New School University of New York and made incursions into photography. Back in Buenos Aires she attended workshops with Sofía Huidobro (painting), Eduardo Stupía (drawing) and Alberto Goldenstein (photography). In addition, she made an oeuvre clinic with Gisela Vola.
