| Galeria Omar
Alonso - 2nd. aniversary
Galeria Omar Alonso is proud to
invite you to celebrate our 2nd. aniversary with a special
exhibition of Luis González Palma on November
25 from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.
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Gonzalez Palma has dedicated his
life to photographing Guatemala´s Mayas, it being
the place where he encounters his roots and contradictions.
Through his portraits, the artist portrays a beautiful
and dignified people, but still a people that has had
to suffer the hardships of the conquest and colonization
of its lands. Using black and white photography hand
painted, utilizing frontal and symmetrical portraits
he effusively shows the spectator the serene, dreamy,
idealist and romantic aura these people have been able
to salvage up until our days. On technical terms, the
artist has arrived at a unique fusion between photography,
literature and painting; frequently completing pieces
which consist of image collages, sometimes adorned with
lace, and texts describing the reality lived by the
person who has ultimately become a character he has
created for the piece. He then, through manual intervention,
gives the process “the human touch” and
a different aesthetic dimension, tinting the surface
with sepia tones, except for the eyes. The character´s
eyes then become the hypnotizing focal point in a solemn
and elegant piece.
The artist justifies the tonalities
employed by their reminiscence of his country´s
cultural legacy, not the common colorful tourist souvenir
tones. He makes reference to the “churches´
ochre, the paintings´ patinas, the color of candles”.
This tonality charges the piece with new meaning and
a false antiquity, with a yearning and melancholy of
“a time they do not posses and of innocence lost”.
This intervention of and physical
interaction with photographs revalues the artesanal
aspect so ostracized by this medium, so aseptic by its
nature. The use of this technique completes and complements
the work, this human intervention valorizing casualty,
error and lack of control once more; every piece being
a unique and unrepeatable work of art.
This aesthetic richness, in addition
to the intrinsic, metaphoric and simbolic language,
make of Gonzalez Palma´s work an important documentation
of a people on themselves, full of hope and romanticism,
and with a beauty that neither time or war can erase.
(Guatemala 1957, Ken Damy Museum,
Brescia, Italy / Foto España, ( Photography Month
in Madrid, Spain ) / Winter Festival, Ouro Preto, Brasil
/ Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, San José,
Costa Rica / Photography Month, Sao Paulo, Brasil /
House of the Américas, La Habana, Cuba / MIT
List Visual Art Center, Cambridge MASS, USA / Visual
Arts Center, Del Barro Museum; Asunción, Paraguay
/ Palacio de Bellas Artes Museum, México City,
Mexico / Museum of Modern Art, Medellin, Colombia /
Museum de la Photographie de Charleroi, Belgica....
among others..)
Omar Alonso
galeriaomaralonso@yahoo.com.mx
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