Cristina Canale

The formal and material richness of Cristina Canale‘s painting provides continuity to the opposition between figuration and abstraction, narrative and non-narrative, in her new solo show at Galeria Nara Roesler.

Her recent output is based on the figure-abstraction pairing, with an emphasis on the organic-geometrical, subverting a division of abstract language into two distinct resources. “Abstraction as a language within Art History has developed towards the direction of the geometrical or the gestural. The areas where I employ geometrical reference also contain the gestural dimension, since the shapes receive an exclusive, not entirely graphical treatment. The idea is to confront the language of abstraction with that of figuration” the artist explains.

In 1993, Cristina Canale moved to Berlin and embarked upon a new pictorial quest, one that changed her construction of perspective, her themes and the raw materials in her pictures, summing up the dynamics of life’s movements through tension between culture and nature, architecture and living being. In this movement, she translates the hidden flow of daily life into opposing elements.

Instead of excess paint, economic, even translucent layers that allow for superimpositions. Instead of perspective built around the vanishing point, minimal, almost plane-like three-dimensionality. In opposition to the use of rigid symbols, an alternating geometry based on architectural elements, like tiles, abandons the formal coldness by adding familiar elements and elements from living things.

In the words of curator Luiz Camillo Osorio, “The figure moves to the foreground and is being projected outward. In this sense, the image operates on an anti-perspective direction, coming from inside the canvas and heading outward, rather than leading one’s gaze towards a vanishing point. The viewer’s gaze gains density and fluidity, assuming a materiality that virtual images lack. The painting is a reserve in the face of the boundless manipulation of things. While standing before Cristina Canale‘s paintings, we are always waiting for a triggering of the world as color.”