Nikola Vudrag at “Personal Structures — Beyond Boundaries”
Palazzo Mora, Venice, IT
Marisabel Gonzalez: Palimpsest
Hake House of Art, Sydney
- By Maxime Foucquet
The extended solo exhibition Palimpset by Marisabel Gonzalez runs at the Hake House of Art in Sydney, Australia. The show opened on Thursday, August 31, with a festive opening and artist talk on September first—moderated by Kathryn Longhurst. The exhibition showcases Gonzalez’s characteristic abstract paintings, exploring storytelling, the emotional dimensions of human nature, the psychological impact of color, and the potential of color as a powerful means of comunication. In addition, Palimpsest presents an exhibition-specific installation of an eight-meter scroll hanging from the wall onto the floor, incuding a series of Totem sculptures. With Palimpsest, the artist devles into the concept of reusing and repurposing materials, texts, thoughts, processes, layering and studying traces of the past.
Marisabel Gonzalez is best known for her vibrant and lively abstract works, marked by vivid colors, expressive mark-making, gestural interventions, and the incorporation of text. With a background in medical imagaing, her marks are influenced by the echo patterns of an ultrasound monitor and the ongoing process of a question-and-answer approach. With Palimpsest, she aims to layer thoughts, emotions, and narratives, opting for a profoundly introspective angle, and an exploration of personal and private narratives interwoven with layers of text.
“A palimpsest is a manuscript page that has been reused after its original text has been scraped or washed off in times when parchment was scarce. However, this process of writing and erasure left its traces, enabling historians to study and reconstruct lost words and reflect the layered history of the material object. If the medium is the message, the palimpsest-esque process of the medium both obstructs, reveals, and enrichens this message. Lost and recycled personal writings—phrases, memories, and traditions written down with the intent to remember them—formed the starting point for a series of works, exploring the concept of layering these mémoires through collage and text. A profound exploration of personal and private narratives interwoven with layers of text. (…) In her paintings, the text is rich and visible, yet not too obvious or even readable. Gonzalez obscures the text, scraped, wiped out, deleted, and rewritten to imbue the artworks with a sense of intimacy and depth, disguising private information. The pictures are reminiscent of the hazy nature of memories and how particular recollections appear in our minds. Even more, some paintings incorporate collage elements such as stitches and bandages composed of discarded canvases and fabric, serving as poignant memento mori, symbolizing her previous life as a doctor, but also reflecting the passage of time in general, remembrance and oblivion, and the transformative nature her journey.” (Source: Press release)
Marisabel Gonzalez was born in 1973 in Caracas, Venezuela, and currently resides and works in Sydney, Australia. She studied Drawing and Painting (2002) at the Armando Reveron National Art School in Caracas, Venezuela; Drawing and Oil Painting (2003) at the Weston Art Institute in Weston, Florida, the United States of America; Mixed Media Painting (2013) at the Ewart Art School and Gallery in Sydney, Australia; Painting (2016) at the National Art School in Sydney, Australia; and Art History and Appreciation (2017) at the Art Institute in Sydney, Australia. Gonzalez also obtained the title of Doctor of Medicine (2001) at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas, Venezuela. Notable exhibitions include solo presentations at the Curl Curl Creative Space (2020) in Sydney, Australia, and Arianne Paffrath (2017) in Düsseldorf, Germany, accompanied by group shows at the Parliament House of NSW (2019) in Sydney, Australia; the Manly Art Gallery and Museum (2019) in Sydney, Australia; ASD (2017) in Den Haag, the Netherlands; and the Sydney Breast Cancer Institute (2016) in Sydney, Australia; to name just a few. Gonzalez has received various honors over the past eight years in Sydney, encompassing two selections for the Warringgh Creative Space Residency (2015 & 2016), three selections as the artist-in-residence at the Bushwick South Studio Residency Program (2016, 2017 & 2019), a selection as a finalist for Thirty by Thirty (2016), two selections as a finalist for the Bluethumb Art Prize (2020 & 2021), and most recently a selection as a finalist for the Paddington Art Prize (2021).
For more information, please visit Marisabel Gonzalez’s website here.
Last Updated on September 8, 2023
Maxime Foucquet
Maxim Foucquet is a curator, art critic, and contemporary artist residing and working in Belgium.
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