Francisco Souto: Por el Rio del Tiempo

francisco souto POR EL RĂ?O DEL TIEMPO through the river of time

K I E C H E L

F I N E

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El río del tiempo, 2010. Archival pigment print (14 images), 6” x 90”

This exhibition is a compilation of my experience

are recorded evidence of my daily life; they recall

as an artist in residence in México. Each work

memory fragments and suggest solutions through visual

developed according to different moods and moments,

mesmerisation. This constant search for the quotidian

suggesting my own habits and contradictions. I want

sublime is compiled through drawings, photographs

art to be a way of thinking through, not simply making,

and digital prints. Ultimately, the range of media in this

an image. Art is for and of something…A testimony of a

exhibition reflects art as a formative vehicle for the

life lived.

exploration of a series of ideas, where the materials of the actual become materials for the possible.

In this new body of work, the physical and sensual aspects of the material generate a point of reconciliation for that seminal experience in México.

This fascination with the poetics of my experience leads me to create work where subject matter is recontextualized and disjointed by depicting experiences in a sequence of optical moments. These images

FRANCISCO SOUTO

S ometimes meandering , sometimes focused and directed, our lives, like rivers, unfold as a flow of experiences.

These experiences exist both in a particular space and time as well as in our memories. In Por el Río del Tiempo (Through the River of Time), Francisco Souto entices viewers with a range of images, each of which captures not only a moment of lived experience, but the artist’s processing of that experience as well.

Each softly blurred graphite drawing, digital print, or photograph suggests a passing moment or perhaps a fleeting memory, and encourages each of us to navigate our own journey as we encounter and explore this body of work.

The title of the show references a novel, El Río del Tiempo (The River of Time) (1999) that Souto was reading while working on these pieces. Written by Colombian novelist Fernando Vallejo (b. 1942), El Río del Tiempo comprises five novels individually published between 1985 and 1993. Each novel is an amalgam of autobiography and fiction, and veers between the present and past. Although El Río del Tiempo did not serve as a specific literary referent for the works in this exhibition, it did suggest a useful conceptual framework for Souto. The notion that an image, like this novel, can be both autobiographical AND fictitious—depict a lived moment but remain obscure or mysterious to the viewer— appealed to Souto.

But this exhibition is emphatically rooted in the visual, rather than literary, realm. Souto’s presentation of the title—with which the viewer is greeted upon entering the gallery—announces the visual basis of this show. The series of digital prints of hands signing each letter of the title transforms the expected verbal language into a visual language, and sets the stage for the array of engaging drawings, prints, and photographs.

For the artist, this body of work celebrates his experiences in Mexico, where he spent his fall semester sabbatical in 2010.

Rather than plan his sabbatical project in advance, he allowed his experiences while in Mexico to direct his work. The resulting artworks, which he found surprising, are presented in this exhibition. All of these images are based on photographs he took, (TOP)

Por el río del tiempo #4, 2010. Graphite on paper, 45” x 45”

(BOTTOM)

Por el río del tiempo #1, 2010. Graphite on paper, 45” x 45”

which he then translated into graphite drawings, digital prints, or manipulated photographs. What particularly captivated Souto was the feeling of comfortable displacement; because of his Venezuelan heritage and fluency in Spanish, Mexico represented a new cultural context without the anxiety of complete alienation.

This liminal space—in between the reassuringly familiar and the utterly foreign—provided the artist with both a conceptual and

physical space in which to roam. His work thus deals with the dynamics of space—physical space, mental space, and cultural space. For example, some of the prints depict hazy figures seen through a frosted glass door. There is a defined physical space—the artist and we viewers on one side of the muntined door and the blurred figures on the other. However, for Souto, there is also an emotional resonance to the image. Because those figures are, in fact, his son and daughter, the memory of that experience, prompted by the photographs, echoes in his mind. Even his working process emphasizes these spatial relationships. When working on the graphite drawings, rather than place the photograph next to the sheet of paper on which he was drawing, Souto placed it on a wall behind him, so that he had to stop drawing, turn around, and look at the photographic referent.

This gave Souto an opportunity to process the residual memories that, for him, accompanied the photographs. In this manner, the physical space between the drawing on the drafting table and the photograph on the wall parallels the mental space in which memory is processed.

For the viewer, these works also provide comfortable displacement. We encounter blurry, vague, fragmentary images that supply us with enough information to get our bearings, but yet are sufficiently vague that we are allowed to construct our own narratives or derive our own meaning. The artist carefully avoids spelling out each experience, thereby encouraging each viewer to find his or her way through the images. That journey is made much easier by the aesthetic allure of the images. The smooth graphite surfaces of the drawings, for example, captivate the viewer with their soft seductiveness. That sensual materiality is important to Souto, as it provides the initial hook—the first enticement for viewers to engage with the drawings and work to make sense of the hazy forms and veiled referents.

In the end, for both the artist and the viewer, these works operate as metaphors—for artistic vision and process, for the way we experience and process new cultures and places, and for how we encounter and understand works of art. As impressive artworks do, Souto’s images provide viewers with both visual pleasure (TOP)

Barcelona #1, 2010. Graphite on paper, 22” x 22”

(BOTTOM)

Barcelona #2, 2010. Graphite on paper, 22” x 22”

and conceptual engagement and invite repeated interaction and reflection.

C hris tin J. Mamiya Hixson–Lied Professor of Ar t Histor y Univer sity of Nebraska–Lincoln

FRANC I S C O S O U TO: S E LE C T E D B I O G R A P H Y

Born in Mérida, Venezuela.

Lives and works in the US since 1997

E D U CAT I ON 2002 2000

M.F.A B.F.A

The Ohio State University Herron School of Art

6th British International Print Exhibition, Gracefield Arts Centre, United Kingdom

7th Bharat Bhavan International Biennial of Print-Art 2006, Roopankar Museum of Fine Arts, India 2005 IV Novosibirsk Biennial of Contemporary Graphic Art,

Novosibirsk State Art Museum, Russia

2005 Hilo National Invitational Exhibition, University of Hawaii at Hilo, Hawaii

Los Angeles Print Society 18th National Exhibition, The Armory Center for the Arts, California 6th Kochi International Triennial of Prints, Japan

The Minnesota National Print Biennial 2004, Minnesota

C U R R E N T P O S I T I ON Associate Professor of Art, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

S E LE C T E D C OL LE C T I O N S Sheldon Museum of Art, Nebraska National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, R.O.C. The National Museum of Art, Romania Ino-Cho Paper Museum, Japan Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana Blanton Museum of Art, Texas Lakeview Museum of Art, Illinois MuseoGrabado, México Ekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts, Russia The Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt Print Cabinet Mondial de L’estampe et de la Gravure Originale, France Amity Art Foundation, Connecticut Sprint Corporate Art Collection, Washington MUNO The No-Museum of Contemporary Art, Mexico Fonds d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, France Private collections nationally and internationally

SELECTED REVIEWS Araceli Rodarte Solorzano, “Centro de Museograbado imparte taller con experto en mezzotinta,” La Jornada, México, May 2010 Michael Krainak, “Another Nebraska,” Omaha Reader, Omaha, Nebraska, February 2010 L. Kent Wolgamott, “Time and Memory: Striking images make up Francisco Souto: La memoria del tiempo at Kiechel,” Lincoln Journal Star, Lincoln, Nebraska, May 2010 Kim Buckley, “Francisco Souto: Professor printmaker,” Omaha Reader, Omaha, Nebraska, August 2009 Sofia Gamboa Duarte, “Francisco Souto: la mezzotinta, una meditación casi filosófica,” La Jornada, México, May 2008 Theo Jean Kenyon. “Educated Risk: Bradley featuring artist who pushes limits of mezzotint,” Peoria Journal Star, Peoria, Illinois, November 2007 Mondial de l’Estampe. “Les quatre grands prix déeernés, heir soir, avant le début officiel aujourd’hui,” La Montage, France, October 2006 “La Vocación: Prints of Francisco Souto,” Printmaking Today: International Magazine of Contemporary Graphic Art, Winter 2005 issue. Published in the UK David Newman, “Setting to work: Francisco Souto Prints,” Brookhaven College School of the Arts, Texas, February 2005 Pamela S. Thompson, “For the love of prints,” L Magazine, Lincoln, Nebraska, March 2005 Julianna Thibodeaux, “Stars and Spider Webs,” Nuvo Newspaper, Indiana, February 2003

S E LE C T E D AWA RD S Special Prize, 7th Kochi International Triennial of Prints, Japan Selected Prize, 12th International Biennial Print and Drawing Exhibition, R.O.C. Ex aequo Prize, International Mini-Print Biennial, Cluj, Romania Honorable Mention, 7eme Mondial de L’Estampe et de la Gravure Originale Triennale de Chamalieres, France International Award, 6th British International Print Exhibition, United Kingdom Juror award, 2005 Pacific States Biennial National Print Exhibition, Hawaii Special Prize, 6th Kochi International Triennial of Prints, Japan Juror Award and Purchase Award, Sixty Square Inches 14th Biennial Small Print Exhibition, Indiana Savoir-Faire Award, Boston Printmakers 2003 North America Print Exhibition, Massachusetts

S E LE C T E D S OLO E X H I B I T IONS 2010 Francisco Souto: New Work, Fonds d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, France 2009 La memoria del tiempo, Kiechel Fine Art, Lincoln, Nebraska Nebraska Now: Francisco Souto, Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney, Nebraska 2007 El otro, el mismo (The self, and the other), Janu Hartmann Center Art Gallery, Peoria, Illinois 2006 Francisco Souto: New Work, Illinois Wesleyan University, Illinois Francisco Souto: Recent Prints, Slugfest Gallery, Texas 2005 Francisco Souto, Brookhaven College School of Arts, Texas

S E LE C T E D G RO U P E X H I B I TIONS 2010 State of the States: A Contemporary Survey of American Printmaking, Texas A&M University Galleries

A Survey of Contemporary Printmaking, Gray Gallery, East Carolina University New York International Print Fair 2010, The Park Avenue Armory, New York Works on Paper, New York City 2010, New York 2009 Maestros del Grabado Latinoamericano Contemporaneo, Italy Multi-media Artist: A Focus on Photography, Kiechel Fine Art, Lincoln, Nebraska 2008 Kochi International Triennial of Prints, Japan Works on Paper New York City, The Park Avenue Armory, New York 2007 New York International Print Fair, New York City, New York

Action/Interaction Book/Art, Columbia College, Illinois 2006 12th International Biennial Print and Drawing Exhibition, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, R.O.C. 7eme Mondial de L’Estampe et de la Gravure Originale - Triennale de Chamalieres, France

The International Mini-Print Biennial, Cluj-Napoca Art Museum, Romania

K I E C H E L

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5733 South 34th Street, Suite 300 Lincoln Nebraska 68516 (402) 420-9553 gallery@kiechelart.com www.kiechelart.com Exhibition Dates April 22 to May 27, 2011 Opening Friday, April 22nd (Above) (cover) (inside)

Zacatecas #4, 2010. Graphite on paper, 22” x 22” Por el río del tiempo #3, 2010. Graphite on paper, 45” x 45” Poetica de la memoria #1, 2010. Archival pigment print, 46” x 33”