COLLAGE ON VIEW
“Serendipias”: Silvia Cuello
at Centro Simón I. Patiño in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia
6 April-10 May 2018
Collage workshop with the artist: 7 April, in the morning
The “Serendipias” series comprises some fifty collages of small and medium format created almost entirely in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 2016-2017 by the Spanish artist Silvia Cuello.
Serendipia (serendipity) is a fortunate and unexpected discovery that occurs when you are looking for something else. Collage is an inexhaustible source of serendipities. An image is never a faithful reflection of reality, it is always a construction designed to achieve specific effects. The images contribute to create the ideology of a culture and to legitimize it by making us believe that they are objective representations of an invariable reality.
But if an image can be assembled, since it is an artificial organization of meaning, it can also be disarmed, and hidden messages come to the surface in the process. In the “Serendipias” series lies a nonconformity with the conditioning of a globalized and patriarchal society and culture. The series tries to dynamite assumptions about the role of women, including motherhood and the female body, and also others related to morality, childhood and death.
At the same time, “Serendipias” is a kind of striptease that reveals the scars of the subconscious. The decontextualized images seem, almost by their own will, to regroup to build metaphors. Darkness and pain are a fertile raw material for deepening one’s sensibility in search of a creative revelation. One can come to find beauty and truth by facing the storm.
Serendipity in this way becomes synchronous, acquiring a deep meaning, which is enriched by the interpretation of each observer.
(adapted from the artist’s press materials)
INFORMATION
Centro Simón I. Patiño
Calle Independencia 89 (at Suárez de Figueroa)
Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia
+591 3-3372425
Hours:
Monday-Friday, 9AM-Noon & 3-7:30PM
Image:
Soy tristeza
by Silvia Cuello
10.6″x9.8″
collage
2017
Courtesy of the artist