Ana Jotta
30 Sep - 26 Nov 2016
ANA JOTTA
Abans que me n’oblidi
30 September - 26 November 2016
Throughout the last five decades, Ana Jotta has been building a very singular body of work which has granted her an increasingly international attention. Paradoxically, part of that singularity comes from her complete disregard for some of the most widespread “rules” of artistic practice. For instance: Ana Jotta has no intent on establishing a coherent, recognizable style, nor does her work circumscribe itself to one single media. In fact, she has paid as much attention to painting as she has done to sculpture, she has delved into drawing and experimented with etching, and knitting has sometimes graced her studio as well. However diverse and equally important, none of these activities has had so much attention from the artist as that which focuses on what we usually call the “found object”. As the name states, these are objects – things of the most diverse nature, really – which the artist comes across in her day-to-day life and whose qualities – formal, symbolic, conceptual, or other – somehow capture her interest in a special way. Actually, it’s fair to say that they resonate in her very own artistic imaginary, representing it in the same (metonymic) way a collectible represents the collection it belongs to. In this sense, these “found objects” form a collectivity of sorts, a growing body made of different parts, some of which stand exactly as they came about (and which the artist refers to as notas de rodapé [footnotes]), others having undergone a process of transcription into another medium, and others still getting combined, slightly altered, moderately edited, but rarely drastically transformed.
And so, in this exhibition we find clouds, miniature bikinis made of leather, phantom playing card paintings, labeling plates, painted screens, newspaper cuts, parts of old signs, flags, trays, calendars, or packs of fluorescent books: a perfectly sound image of a fragmented universe, moderately serious, purposely ironic, but ever so invested in testing and showing the capacity that the slightest things have to trigger our artistic experience.
Abans que me n’oblidi
30 September - 26 November 2016
Throughout the last five decades, Ana Jotta has been building a very singular body of work which has granted her an increasingly international attention. Paradoxically, part of that singularity comes from her complete disregard for some of the most widespread “rules” of artistic practice. For instance: Ana Jotta has no intent on establishing a coherent, recognizable style, nor does her work circumscribe itself to one single media. In fact, she has paid as much attention to painting as she has done to sculpture, she has delved into drawing and experimented with etching, and knitting has sometimes graced her studio as well. However diverse and equally important, none of these activities has had so much attention from the artist as that which focuses on what we usually call the “found object”. As the name states, these are objects – things of the most diverse nature, really – which the artist comes across in her day-to-day life and whose qualities – formal, symbolic, conceptual, or other – somehow capture her interest in a special way. Actually, it’s fair to say that they resonate in her very own artistic imaginary, representing it in the same (metonymic) way a collectible represents the collection it belongs to. In this sense, these “found objects” form a collectivity of sorts, a growing body made of different parts, some of which stand exactly as they came about (and which the artist refers to as notas de rodapé [footnotes]), others having undergone a process of transcription into another medium, and others still getting combined, slightly altered, moderately edited, but rarely drastically transformed.
And so, in this exhibition we find clouds, miniature bikinis made of leather, phantom playing card paintings, labeling plates, painted screens, newspaper cuts, parts of old signs, flags, trays, calendars, or packs of fluorescent books: a perfectly sound image of a fragmented universe, moderately serious, purposely ironic, but ever so invested in testing and showing the capacity that the slightest things have to trigger our artistic experience.