"The truth is that materials, all of them, convey the memory of a place, they talk about where they came from. For example, the black clay of Oaxaca… It’s an incredible colour, somewhere between a silvery effect like pewter and black! It speaks of Mexico" - Perla Krauze
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Running up to September 3rd in London, Mixed Exhibition will show works by Perla Krauze (b. Mexico City) and Mimi Jung (b. Seoul, South Korea and living and working in Montana).
Perla Krauze works with a number of materials from lead, clay and water to stone. Using graphite frottages from stones and pavements and engraved volcanic rocks from El Pedregal, her paintings are abstract topographies and mappings. Stone is a fundamental material in her practice; linked to memory and durability, it can also be transformed and eroded. The crosshatch patterns in her paintings derive from the lines made in stone cutting, emphasising the transformation of stone from raw material to art object. Described as ‘grayscale tone poems’, Krauze alters and arranges stones to make miniature landscapes, complete in themselves but still referencing their origins.
Mimi Jung redefines the traditional practice of weaving, experimenting with intricate new techniques while exploring the medium’s potential for self-expression. Through the spectrum of works originating from the loom, Jung investigates the way people continuously negotiate space within and between themselves. Jung tests the limitations of the traditional grid format, breaking the convention and in this process giving the works an almost kinetic potential. Although fixed, Jung’s forms are never static as their voids and translucencies encourage optical movement through and around them.
“… between what is ephemeral and what is permanent, what is natural or artificial, geometric or organic… that is how I see life, full of dualities for good and for bad." - Perla Krauze.
The London exhibition brings together the work of these two great artists, each one with unique approaches to traditional craft methods. The exhibition will be a collaboration between Cadogan and Galería Hilario Galguera from Mexico City, curated by Freddie Burness and Georgina Pounds. Jung’s Pareidolia series is based on her childhood pastime of lying underneath a pergola and observing her surroundings. Abstracted by the rectangular wooden slats of the pergola, she repeatedly constructed new realities and interpretations of the cityscape and the sky. Her work examines multiple dimensions of identity and self-preservation, particularly relating to private and public self-representation and the ways these depictions are manifested through social and cultural mores. Pareidolia, seeing what is not present and designating meaning to the meaningless, allows our narrative and societal expectations to align. Cued by their titles ‘Hear Me’ and ‘Imbued With’, this series invites the viewer to impose their perceptions onto the works. And in doing so, investigate why and how we perceive what is in front of us.
Much of her work welcomes the discussion of geography and petrology, documenting the El Pedregal area of Mexico City in particular. This region of the city has a distinct cultural and physical topology. Mythical and raw, it houses the ruins of Cuilcuilco, the oldest city in Mexico, and Copilco, both covered by lava from the eruption of the Xitle volcano three thousand years ago. Krauze also references architecture from the past century in her paintings and sculpture including the Museo Anahuacalli and Casa Prieto designed by Luis Barragan.
If you are in London, do not miss it at Cadogan Gallery, 87 Old Brompton Road.