09/14/2023
Down to Earth, a solo exhibition of mixed media works on canvas by Silver Street artist, Gabriela Monterroso.
As an intuitive painter, Gabriela Monterroso creates figures that highlight the beauty of the faded and withered. Through intentional layering, line work, and mark-making, she emulates the irreversible flow of life and reflects on faded beauty and the newly acquired charm that time gives.
Incorporating found paper and employing the qualities of the paint itself to create texture within her works, she achieves a more dimensional foundation. Monterroso then applies various mediums like charcoal, pastel, and graphite to enhance definition and depth. By alternating the process of collage and drawing, she lends a seamless blend of the two approaches to her works.
The artist writes: "Inspired by myths and earth elements, my figures are icons that offer a sense of tranquility and sympathetic magic. Disrupting the idea that the human body is separate from its environment, I rely on earth tones and natural pigments, older than us, to give insight and understanding of the natural force of ‘womanhood’ through decades and centuries. Simultaneously, persuaded by stories of a woman with horse traits who was feared to be able to move the earth through her force, my depiction of the horse is a creative expression of my own alter-ego and a reflection of the force within every woman."
On view through October 7.
