IT IS FASCINATING TO KNOW THAT FROM AN ANECDOTE OF CHILDHOOD ALL ITS PERSONAL PLASTIC UNIVERSE CAN TURN UP. THIS IS THE CASE OF THE ARTIST MARTA BRAN, WITH HER SOLO EXHIBITION ‘PICNIC‘, SHE WANTED TO RESCUE A MEMORY AND TRANSFORM IT INTO AN INSTALLATION COMPRISING VARIOUS ARTISTIC DISCIPLINES. PAINTING, SCULPTURE AND ANIMATION MAKE UP A LANDSCAPE INHABITED BY ANIMALS, NATURE AND FOOD, AS WELL AS A MALE CHARACTER WHO SEEMS TO OBSERVE THE SCENE. AN ENTIRE SET THAT INVITES US TO LOOK THE FLOOR, SIDEWAYS, AROUND, LOOKING FOR ANOTHER PARALLEL LIVES NO LESS SIGNIFICANT THAN OURS.
The exhibition can be seen at Trinta Gallery in Santiago de Compostela, until next September 5th. It is a perfect occasion to approach the work of this young Galician artist who, although she has participated in numerous group exhibitions, this is her first individual major project.
Picnic was born from the memory of a summer evening in 1993 when, in the countryside, a piece of cheese from her sandwich fell down and Marta could discover a row of ants carrying it, moving through the kitchen floor. A memory that has been stored up to this time, to take the form of installation comprising different artistic media. She says she likes to experiment in each of them, and she understands the creation in the expanded field as an ideal.
It is for this reason why there are paintings, sculptures and animation in this exhibition. Among them, Marta confesses that she has a special relationship with painting because ‘the tempo of the painting is totally different from other disciplines, since it helps you to think and reflect for many hours being alone’. We can imagine that the insects which move and are catching food were made during those hours, from the series of paintings on paper that she presents. Some of them are quite exotic, they coexist with other which are more domestic giving place to a very particular fauna, ‘I have been very rigorous in the selection of my private collection’. A unique fauna which is fruit of a mixture of fear and fascination with the animal world.
She also tells that, in the near future, she would like to deepen in the animation world, and in this field she loves the works of the Japanese artist Shishi Yamazaki. As for art pieces and artists of reference, portraits of Arcimboldo or The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, have been some important. But perhaps Edouard Manet and his Luncheon on the Grass was the most determining factor in designing this artistic project, ‘somehow I also deploy an afternoon snack in the form of installation in the gallery space’. This denotes both an interest by authors and classics such as the ability to review them with a very contemporary gaze. She talks about her love of illustration and drawings by artists such as Amy Cutler.
When asked about what kind of emotions she would like to make feel through her art pieces, Marta responds ‘surprise and curiosity’. We imagine that is what she feels when these anecdotes appear in her everyday life, apparently minimal, field on which she likes to work. Anecdotes she wants to continue exploring, through the creation of atmospheres full of detail, inviting those who are watching this atmosphere to have fun and causing a ‘second, third and fourth reading…’.
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Picnic
Trinta Gallery, Santiago de Compostela (Spain).
From the 12th to the 15th of September, 2014.
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Daily METAL
Art review by Cristina Ramírez.
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