MONTI8 is delighted to announce “Building Narratives”, a group show featuring the works of Zoya Cherkassky, Tom Anholt, Ana Segovia, Marcela Florido and Raelis Vasquez.
Combining personal histories and tradition of their countries, each artist selected depicts compositions full of references, which create new narratives. Their paintings lead the viewer to reflect on issues connected to memory, family, roots as well as history and political events.
In modern society, marked by immigration and the cohabitation of different cultures, these artists investigate the meaning of identity and its relationship with their land or their people or their context. For example, in the works of Zoya Cherkassky, the story of her childhood is merged with a collective experience. Before moving to Israel at the age of fourteen, she has lived in Ukraine,where she was born. Her works are influenced by her memories of that time, as an insight of a world which doesn’t exist anymore, the Soviet Union, evoked especially by clothes and the buildings typical of that period in USSR. She’s not interested representing political events of the USSR, instead, she wants to decribe moments of everyday life.
As in Zoya Cherkassky’s works, also the painting of Tom Anholt is intimate and familiar and draws from his personal life. He paints very intense portraits of his friends or other people close to him, depicted with an unrealistic style which enphasizes the expressionism of the bodies and faces. Every work Anholt paints is rich in influences, not only from his surroundings, but also from other cultures, for instance, his manner resembles Persian miniature for his tone and his care of details, even if his landscapes and figures belong to the present.
Ana Segovia depicts subjects that are imbued of elements from the Mexican tradition: colours, environments, interiors and clothes are typical of her country. Her works look like movie sets, which in fact inspire her a lot. She represents Mexican movie scenes to explore multiple issues linked in particular to sexuality or gender roles in our society, underlined by the proliferation of the idea of “macho”, played by men like cowboys, poker players or bullfighters, main characters of many Mexican movies.Marcela Florido too investigates the stereotypes of her culture, fusing them with notions of identity and memory. Her canvases are mostly occupied by a young and charming female portrait, marked by vivid colours wich convey a feeling of joy and happiness. Her birthplace, Brazil, is suggested by the tones, but also by the flowers and landscapes on the background. Nevertheless, looking deeper into her works, this reference can be seen as a critic of the cliché of Brazilian culture and how the rest of the world consider it.
Raelis Vasquez uses painting as a vehicle to question issues connected to his people, the Latin American community. Through cozy portraits, the viewer is invited to reflect on the condition of certain classes or ethnies, especially minorities who live in a foreign country. He’s also interested in family relationships: he paints beautiful pictures of family members caught in their homes on their daily routine, like a mother nursing her baby or a son reading a newspaper.
Every artist creates new narratives moving from concepts sush as identity, culture or family, but each one using different styles and different pasts and personal stories.
In her works, the artist creates a sort of new museum collections, merging everyday stuff with furniture or artistic items such as sculptures, ancient vases and other old objects, wich recall some antique shops.
The show will run from March 27th through May 20th.
