07 Nov 2012

Eulalia Valldosera at Studio Trisorio, Naples

The Catalan artist has transformed the gallery space for her exhibit, composed of videos, projections of light and shadows, photographs and objects, which interact and come to life in a enthralling 'mise-en-scène' spotlighting how family and sentimental relationships are conditioned by the feminine and masculine forces that are deeply rooted in each individual. In the most universal sense, her works delve into the individual and collective subconscious, the symbolic value of objects which are used on a daily basis and, in particular, the power struggle in social relationships.

The exhibit include the installations entitled Mother & Father, We Are One Body as well as a few photographs from the Family Ties series.

In the theatrical shadow of the work Mother & Father, a man and a woman perform a sequence of acts in a ritual of love and hate. The mother and father roles we have interiorized comprise our emotional and relational makeup. The images, projected from a single source, are captured in a multitude of mirrors and reflect fragments of light and shadow onto everyday objects in a bathroom specifically built in the gallery. The light and shadows bounce from one object to another and draw the spectator into a play of multiple reflections.

In the We Are One Body installation, internet footage of the recent revolt in Athens is projected onto on the surface of an old earthenware urn as audio of the street fighting and the declarations of American hypnotist Dolores Cannon are emitted from the inside of another urn, while abstract, transcendent geometric images are projected on the ceiling.
The dislocated images and audio, in contrast to the synchronization of television language to which we have all become so accustomed, disorient the spectator. The protagonists of the street fighting, the demonstrators and the police, evoke the Greek archetype of the warrior who defends his territory at the cost of his own life and harks back to the social drama which is taking place on a global scale.

In the photographs of the Family Ties series, the subjects are members of two types of families, one structured in a traditional manner and the other corresponding to what has become a wide-spread, contemporary model which might best be termed as fluid. The artist asked each subject to interpret his or her usual role in real life and then in overlapping the images in light and shadow and scenes of bodies intertwining and fusing together, expresses the complexity of family ties and the array of inner emotions which recede into each other.

Eulalia Valldosera was born in 1963 in Barcelona where she lives and works. She has exhibited in leading galleries and museums the world over including the Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Museé d'Art Contemporain in Montreal and the PS1 in New York. She participated in the Lyon Biennale in 2009, in the San Paolo Biennale in 2004, in the Venice Biennale in 2001, in the Sidney Biennale in 1996, in the Johannesburg and Istanbul Biennales in 1997 and in the Skulptur Projeckts in Munster in 1997.