DISCOVERY - D1
https://photolondon.org
Strength, Beauty and fragility.
What it means to be a woman through the eyes of three excepcional female artists.
Spanish Contemporary Art gallery Isolina Arbulu is proud to announce its first participation in Photo London. The gallery will showcase the work of three talented female photographers from different nationalities who explore what it means to be a woman in today’s political and cultural context.
Chilean artist Magdalena Correa, Colombian photographer Adriana Duque and Mexican/Spanish photographer Angélica Arbulu use their images to o raise awareness, challenge stereotypes, and inspire change.
Magdalena Correa, presents works from her recent collection "Suiti", a small Latvian community living in isolation in a Lutheran-majority territory. Suiti is a form of Catholic culture recognised as intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO. The life of the Suiti revolves around strict customs and rituals that keep their culture alive, including drone singing performed only by the women. Suiti women were initially required to wear a special uniform, with wide skirts of bright red, green and blue, to better distinguish Catholics from Protestants. These skirts have become an important element of their identity. Magdalena beautifully captures the uniqueness of these details that keep a struggling culture alive. Magdalenas work features in some of the worlds top public and private colections.
Adriana Duque’s photographic images allude to tableux traditions that include the backdrops used by nineteenth century commercial portraitists. Adriana’s photographs play with the idea of endless childhood, complemented by elements borrowed from rural contexts. Adriana has developed the use of photographic scenes that address feminine adolescent identity using borderline narratives. Although Duque´s work seems not to explicitly address psychosexual issues, the lost innocence of these girls is made evident in manifestations of early maturity. In her latest project, "All that tries to reveal itself", Duque's famous princesses abandon their sumptuous golden crowns to adorn themselves with subtle plant-inspired membranes covered in light and translucent fabrics that shelter small and fragile fragments of a still-living nature. A fabric of energy that connects them and also isolates them; ithey both protect and trap the fragility of women’s existence.
Angélica Arbulú presents the series Sine Personæ. The word person comes from the latin Personæ, which means mask. The title reflect the photographer’s intent to unmask her subjects’ true essence. Angélica photographs adolescent women stem from a personal viewpoint: with the eyes of a mother, in admiration, fascinated by this almost magical transformation. She is searching for this almost mythological being who is no longer a child but not yet an adult. She sees in all of them the same larva struggling to define its adult form, piece by piece, with beauty and beauty standards weighing heavily in that process.
We are thrilled to have this opportunity to present the work of these three exceptional artists, who bring a fresh perspective to the way we see and understand women. Their images are a testament to the power of photography.
