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The Museo Patio Herreriano is set to showcase an intriguing solo exhibition by artist Damaris Pan, titled “Oalddilal V,” running from October 19, 2024, to March 9, 2025. This title, a playful twist on language, suggests a figure of historical or cultural significance, inviting viewers to ponder whether Oalddilal V might be a Gothic king, a wrestling star, or a reggaeton icon. This clever manipulation of familiar terms reflects the core themes present in Pan’s work, which challenges conventional notions of painting.
Born in 1983, Damaris Pan has cultivated her artistic practice within the realm of painting, embracing experimentation and intentionally stepping away from traditional conventions. Her work defies easy categorization, blurring the lines between representation and abstraction. This indeterminate positioning enriches her art, as she explores everyday gestures and emotional nuances that shape our lived experiences.
Inside her canvases, multiple compositions coexist, featuring organic forms interwoven with strict geometries reminiscent of modernist grid patterns. Yet, Pan subverts this modernist legacy, stripping it of its solemnity to create windows into the void. These canvases oscillate between expressive color fields and informalist textures, creating a dynamic interplay between distance and proximity in the viewer’s experience.
As one approaches her work, the thick brushstrokes reveal unexpected encounters with liquid surfaces that dissolve into ethereal hues, challenging preconceived notions of color and space. This diverse treatment of the pictorial space creates a disorienting yet captivating visual experience.
Pan’s imagery often depicts fragments of bodies engaged in ambiguous actions, devoid of a clear narrative trajectory. This simultaneous revelation of images complicates traditional perspectives, inviting viewers to reconsider their expectations of storytelling within art. The artist’s bold strokes dance rhythmically against vertical bands that eschew expressiveness, compelling the audience to confront the ambivalence of her creations.
Frequent visitors to the Museo Patio Herreriano may recall Pan’s participation in the inaugural edition of the “Turno de réplica” cycle in 2021, titled “Construcción/Composición.” Now, her work occupies the demanding space of Gallery 8, characterized by significant height and generous spatial allowances. The unique attributes of this gallery inspired Pan to design her project as an intervention within the space itself.
Utilizing architectural elements, such as a column that defines the room’s height, Pan has created a new “skin” for this structure, harmonizing it with the gallery’s color palette. Alongside this, she presents volumes constructed from humble materials that resemble pedestals, echoing grotesque forms found in her paintings and embodying the playful yet serious undertones of her exhibition.
In “Oalddilal V,” Damaris Pan invites viewers to engage in a rich dialogue about the nature of contemporary painting, challenging them to navigate the complexities of form, space, and meaning within her work. This exhibition promises to be a thought-provoking exploration of art’s potential to transcend traditional boundaries and provoke new interpretations.
Photos credit: Pictures are property of the Museo Patio Herreriano
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