SILENT THREADS
Silent Threads is an exhibition project that explores artists, materials and processes which, have been traditionally reserved for women. This story is connected with the fact that in general, women have had less representation in art, especially in museums and galleries throughout history, a very relevant issue today. Colombia has a long tradition of weaving inherited from pre-colonial times, thus, our aim is to present how female artists from various backgrounds coincide in the use of thread and collage in their works. This exhibit is dedicated to women, to the traditions that are rescued and elevated to works of art. The exhibition is co-curated by Liliana Becerra, a textile, color and material designer based in Los Angeles, and Montenegro Art Projects (MAP) team, Sandra Montenegro, director and Ana Lucia Arbelaez, art historian. Participating artists: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Marcelina Akpojotor (Nigeria) Laura Renée Maier (USA) Liliana Angulo (Colombia) Aimee Garcia (Cuba) Natalia Behaine (Colombia) Luis Luna en colaboración con Mónica de Rhodes (Colombia) Nicole Mazza (USA-Argentina) Cabinet d’Objets, Salón Comunal Lina Pardo (Colombia) WWW.MAPART.CO
Pag. 4 Pag. 6 Pag. 15 Pag. 19 Pag. 25 Pag. 29 Pag. 33 Pag. 38 Pag. 44
Silent Threads, is an allegory to a connecting thread that step by step, creates form and tells a story. The threads are silent because traditionally, certain media and materials - like weaving, embroidering and sewing - have been “set aside” for women and the works created by them, are often left in the background labeled as domestic pieces. Today, these plastic techniques are gaining greater aesthetic and narrative value in the field of contemporary art. This exhibition explores processes of artistic creation where the manipulation of the material creates form and depth, transforming originally flat or two-dimensional elements, into three-dimensional sculptures full of meaning. The strength of the textiles takes on a profound aesthetic and social meaning, exploring narratives related to the female experience for its legendary connection with textiles, and for its ability to transform the simple into the complex and the mundane into the supreme. The repetition of simple elements such as a stitch line that changes color according to its intensity; the manipulation of paper into weaving fiber and consequently into canvas; and the transformation of hair fibers into elaborate braided garments, speak of the connection between the past and the future through the creative present moment. WWW.MAPART.CO
MARCELLINA AKPOJOTOR
(Lagos, Nigeria. 1989) Lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria Marcellina Akpojotor studied at Lagos State Polytechnic and interned under the Nigerian artist Bruce Onobrakpeya, participating in his Harmattan Workshop. In her work, the artist combines textile collages and traditional painting techniques including Acrylics, to produce layered and densely textured compositions over two-dimensional backgrounds. Her characters are often featured amongst familiar backgrounds and domestic elements such as houseplants, furniture and pets. For her collages, she uses discarded pieces of Ankara fabric, a textile with Dutch origin, which is one of the most common kinds of African fabric today, characterized by having bold colors and designs. Through the use of this material, she explores its political and socio-cultural meaning in today’s contemporary culture. “In her work, Akpojotor presents powerful images that at once capture the unyielding strength, complexities and seemingly effortless style of her subjects while also referencing the long, arduous journey to female empowerment and gender equality, especially in contemporary African societies.” Rele Gallery.
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Marcellina Akpojotor Set to Flourish III Acrylic and fabric on canvas 152 x 121 cm. (60”x48”) 2021
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LAURA RENÉE MAIER
(Seattle, Washington, 1991) Lives and works in Bogota, Colombia Laura Renée is a textile artist with a focus on stylistic renderings of the female form. Stitching into fabric by way of an antique sewing machine, she creates intimate figures using only one continuous line. This one line representing the infinite and perpetually unraveling nature of ourselves. Her works translate the undefinable feelings of femininity into fibers to stand the test of time. In the Flesh of my flesh series, Laura develops a meticulous intervention with red threads embroidered on cotton fabrics, that suggest to the viewer parallel anatomies that have coexisted since always. Extended veins and anatomical landscapes play in the fragile plasticity of the textile to remind us that we are part of the same root and together we make the same fabric. The structural and extensive interconnections that make up our limited spaces as living beings, make a network of roads and complex networks that communicate through threads and fine veins that house our memory. Originally from Seattle Washington, Laura Renée developed a fascination with textiles and a collection of antique sewing machines at a young age. In 2014 she unearthed her signature style and began creating and showing her first bodies of work. Laura Renée is currently based between New York City and Bogota, Colombia. Her work is part of international collections and she is currently collaborating with French furnishing company, Roche Bobois.
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Laura Renee Maier Disappearances IV Black thread on canvas 105 x 68 cm (41.3" x 26.7") 2021
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Laura Renee Maier Eternal Form I, Woman Red thread on canvas 158 x 102 cm. (62.2" x 40.2") 2020
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Laura Renee Maier Eternal Form II Red thread on canvas 98 x 90 cm. (38.6" x 35.4") 2020
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Laura Renee Maier Yarumo Study VII Red thread on canvas 115 x 92 cm. (45.3" x 36.2") 2021
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Laura Renee Maier Yarumo Study VIII Red thread on canvas 79 x 74 cm. (31.1" x 29.1") 2021
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Laura René Maier, Study Disappearances 3 & 4, Blue thread on canvas, 38 x 30 cm, 2021.
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Desapariciones, Técnica Mixta, Hilo sobre lienzo y Digital The 2021 series Desapariciones, meaning disappearances, is inspired by the artist’s experience living in Colombia during a period of social unrest and revolution. This series speaks of the thousands of missing lives in the country, and the generations long fight of resistance by the Colombian people. Through abstraction and subtraction the works of this series physically embody the metaphysical remains of the pieces of us that have disappeared.
Desapariciones is the first body of work by Laura Renée Maier to explore the digital medium through digital painting. These digital works in combination with the highly textural textile pieces in this series is a challenge to the traditional processes and forms of abstraction.
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Laura Renée Maier Agustín´s hands Digital painting Editions: 3 4371 x 6179 PX 2021 WWW.MAPART.CO
Laura Renée Maier Disappearances II Digital painting Editions: 4 4365 x 6132 PX 2021
LILIANA ANGULO
(Bogotá, Colombia. 1974) Lives and works in Bogota, Colombia
Quieto Pelo (Still Hair) is a collaborative project that seeks to document the oral traditions and practices associated with hair braiding, hair care, and the political choices expressed through hair styling among women of African descent in different regions of Colombia and Latin America. In her work, Liliana explores the representation of black women in contemporary culture through the lenses of gender, race and identity. Her work includes elements from sculpture, photography, video, collective interventions, installation and performance art. She has worked as a researcher, teacher, manager and curator and is a member of various collectives supporting the struggles of Afro-Colombian communities. In her projects, she has unearthed archives on resistance movements, retrieval and anti-racist initiatives as well as the presence of the Afro population in Colombia in order to throw light on the power relations surrounding the image, territory, race and body of black women. Liliana is a Fulbright scholarship recipient. She has participated in individual and collective exhibitions such as the 41st National Artist Salon in Colombia; the IX Biennial of the Museum of Modern Art of Bogota; as well as international exhibitions in the United States at the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA), Long Beach, California,, Spain, Mexico and France. In 2008, she participated as a guest artist at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris (Center National de la Recherche Scientifique – CNRS). WWW.MAPART.CO
Liliana Angulo The Basket, from the Series Quieto Pelo Tumaco, Digital photography. 60 x 40 cm. 2017
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Liliana Angulo The Basket, from the Series Quieto Pelo Tumaco Digital photography. 60 x 40 cm. 2017
Liliana Angulo, Series Quieto pelo. Digital Photography. Variable dimensions. 2006-2020 Double diptych 23 x 18 cm Double diptych 14 x 9 cm Double triptych 15 x 10 cm
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Liliana Angulo, Balance from the series HairDo, braided hair, fishing weights, metal hardware, 11.5 meters long, 2012-2021.
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AIMÉE GARCÍA
(Matanzas, Cuba. 1972) Lives and works in Winston Salem, North Carolina “It is quite possible that Aimee Garcia is one of the artists in this world who has most used the resource of self-portraiture in her works. In Cuba, self-portraiture is almost a political gesture because it goes against the idea in which we have been educated in the island, where the collective and the mass has always been a priority and has annulled any hint of individual initiative. In this way, the artist places herself as the protagonist and center of racial, gender, domestic, historical, identity and social contradictions. In her work, we are confronted with retinal images that paradoxically hold an immense uneasiness, sufficiently autobiographical to be legitimate.” Elvia Rosa Castro, art critic. Graduated from the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana in 1996. She has had personal exhibitions at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam, Havana; Alejandro Otero Museum, Caracas; Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles; Fraser Gallery, Washington DC. and Gallery at Foyles Bookshop, London. Aimee has participated in several art biennials such as the 57th Venice Biennial, Havana Biennial, Kwangju Biennial, Cuenca Biennial and Painting Biennial of the Caribbean and Central America. Her work has been exhibited at the Museo José Luis Cuevas, Mexico. Museum of Modern Art, Toluca, Mexico. Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, New York. Shelley and Rubin Foundation, New York. Arizona State University Art Museum, Arizona. Kunsthalle Rostock, Rostock, Germany. Her works are in public collections such as Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba. ASU Art Museum. Arizona, USA. Museo del Barrio. New York. USA. University of Virginia. Art Museum. Virginia, USA. Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon, Oregon, USA. Museum of Finest Cuban Arts. MOFCA. Vienna. Vienna, Austria. The Farber Cuban Avant-Garde Collection. USC Fisher Museum of Art. Los Angeles. CA. Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM).
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AImée García Repression # 4 Oil on wood, vinyl and thread. 64 x 43 cm. (25.2" x 16.9") 2018
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Aimée García Opposite, Acrylic, oil and thread on canvas, 30.5 x 30.5 cm. (15.5" x 15.5") 2020
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AImée García Tide Acrylic, oil and thread on canvas, 25 x 25 cm. (9.8" x 9.8") 2020
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Soft Shots, 2020. Oil on canvas, thread, felt and wood. 30.5 cm. (15.5") diameter, 20 cm. (7.9") diameter and 15 x 28 cm. (5.9" x 11")
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Soft Shots, 2020. Oil on canvas, thread, felt and wood. 20 cm. (7.9") diameter & 15 x 28 cm. (5.9" x 11") (Detail)
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NATALIA BEHAINE
(Barranquilla, Colombia. 1981) Lives and works in Bogota, Colombia A wall can have many meanings. Historically, they have been erected as dividing surfaces, as objects that denote a limit and, as mysterious constructions that hide something. In "The Wall of the Wind,” Natalia explores her childhood memories growing up in San Bernardo del Viento, a small town in Colombia´s Caribbean coast. In this work, she captures her memories in the form of text, drawing and juxtaposing images on her old photographs. Since Natalia was little, she imagined the wall as a mobile being that she now uses as a canvas, as the background wall remains the same while the images taken on the wall vary, expressing fragments of her personal story. Dusting off the town´s past that is part of a social subconscious that survived the disappearance of some of the towns´ people, the psychological violence against women and the simple daily life of a poor in this forgotten place. “The Wall of the Wind" is an contemplation exercise where the wall becomes a source for creation, and its imagery dissolves into the space turning into nothing; and, then again, it can turn into a world of possibilities. Natalia has lived in the last couple of years between Switzerland and Colombia. She has exhibited in these countries and is preparing her upcoming exhibition at Alliance Francaise in Bogota.
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The wall of the Wind # 7. Analog and digital photography, text and drawing. 20 x 30 cm, (7.9" x 11.8") 2021.
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The wall of the Wind # 21. Analog and digital photography, text and drawing. 20 x 30 cm. (7.9" x 11.8") 2021.
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LUIS LUNA
(Bogota, Colombia. 1958) Lives and works in Bogota, Colombia For ArtNexus magazine, the work of Luis Luna has an undeniable richness in terms of technical and thematic elements. In the field of painting (which is the one that interests him the most, rather than the literary or drawing resources), the artists uses a diversity of supports such as canvas, metal, glass or wood. He ingeniously resolves every one of them without betraying his previous methods but with the interest of challenging the restrictions of any classification. His primary motive is to provoke an explosion of interpretations without a defined conducting thread, faced, in addition (in a good sense), to traditional easel painting. The diversity of materials and the unlimited inclusion of quotes as personal notes could provoke a mental chaos in the viewer that faces his work for the first time. But Luna is the creator of a work as controlled as it is charged with meanings. Alchemy is the most forceful result in Luis Luna's work. Using references from art history, such as El Bosco, Delacroix, Durero and Francisco de Goya, among others; he manages to juxtapose Goyesque elements such as that buffoonish, macabre, happy and craziness of the Colombian reality. For the Silent Threads exhibition, Luna collaborates with Monica de Rhodes textile studio. She produced a woven canvas made with copper thread and paper, which Luna uses to illustrate the feeling of an opal stone. In the middle ages, it was believed that this stone could provide great luck, as it was believed to possess the virtues of each gemstone whose color was found on the opal. Luis Luna´s work is part of major institutional and private collections in Latin America and Germany. He has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogota (Mambo), Luis Angel Arango Library, Modern Art Museum of Bucaramanga, National Museum of Art in Beijing, China, National Library of Seoul, Korea, Spring Garden Center in Hong Kong, among others.
Luis Luna Opal Oil on paper and copper threads 230 x 230 cm. (90.5" x 90.5") 2020
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Luis Luna, Questions from the soul, Oil on warped paper, 145 x 100 cm, 2020.
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Luis Luna, Fossils in Sáchica, Oil on warped paper 100 x 80 cm, 2018.
Luis Luna, Travelers of New Granada 1 & 2, Light box, serigraphy and oil, 29.5 x 29.5 x 6 cm. each, 2018.
Luis Luna, Partitura Lux Femina, Serigraphy on Glass, 29.5 x 29.5 x 3 cm, 2020, Ed 30.
Price: 550 USD each
Price: 350 USD
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NICOLE MAZZA
(Florida, USA. 1989) Lives and works in Rosario, Argentina Nicole is a textile artist, a writer and a Tango dancer. She obtained her BFA in Painting and Fiber Arts at the School from the Art Institute in Chicago in 2011. She began her artistic career with painting and little by little, she began including embroidery, until the technique took over his work completely. Her grand-mother and her mother are the most important women in his life and their work is greatly influenced by their presence and the hardships they left behind. He spent much of his childhood and adolescence with his Portuguese-born grandmother. This art of embroidery was learned from her who made lace. In the work “Los Amantes” (“The Lovers”), the artist recounts an experience of her grandmother. When she was young, she had a boyfriend who died and thought about becoming a nun but years later, she met her husband (and Nicole's grandfather) with whom she finally married. In this idea, the artist takes up this story and appropriates it by portraying those who were or did not become her lovers. In “Portraits Of My Mothers”, she reconstructs a memory of his mother, after she ended a relationship with a boyfriend, she went to his house to spy on him. This scene shows us just the moment when the protagonist hides among the bushes to observe her ex-partner. Nicole's work has, in addition to family stories, experiences of its own. In these early pieces of her career we can see her exploration of her identity as a woman and as a sexual being. These symbols appear represented on each of the stories. Nicole began to explore her sexuality as a young woman in her grandmother's house in a hidden and almost forbidden way. Therefore, her works allow her to express that liberation by trying to get away from the judgments of society and religion that insist that women be chaste and pure. Nicole wants to live her life without shame. WWW.MAPART.CO
Nicole Mazza Portraits Of My Mothers Embroidery 102 x 74 cm (40.15” x 29.13”) 2017 Price: $ 3000 USD WWW.MAPART.CO
Nicole Mazza, Lovers, embroidery over canvas previously embroidered by her grandmother, 40 x 115 cm (15.7” x 45.27”), 2018. Price: $ 4000 USD WWW.MAPART.CO
Nicole Mazza Making Deals With God Embroidery 49 x 35 cm (19.29” x 13.77”) 2017 Price: $ 1,400 USD
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Nico Mazza, Ceremony, embroidery, 35x25 cm (9.84” x 13.77”), 2017. Price: $ 2000 USD WWW.MAPART.CO
COLLABORATION WITH SALON COMUNAL Cecilia Ordoñez. Born in Pamplona, Colombia in 1949. Lives and works in Tenjo, Colombia. She was a professor at the School of Arts of the National University of Colombia for 28 years. She promoted the ceramics career and held administrative positions as Director of Careers and of the Arts Department. "Clay and fire have been part of my life for more than 40 years. I have taken risks and seized opportunities; luck has been generous to me, perhaps because I have been alert, reaching back into the past to take the present in my hands." Her work is exhibited in several art museums in Colombia and abroad. Bernardo Montoya. Born in Bogota, Colombia in 1979. He has a particular interest in matter and its transmutations. In his practice he uses different techniques and media, he strives to weave threads between art-science and other disciplines. She works with pictorial fluids, clay and metals. Her artistic objects establish relationships between objects of nature and objects created by man. His work is linked to research, curatorship, management and organization of exhibitions. Felipe González. Born in Bogotá, Colombia in 1984. Plastic artist graduated from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana of Bogota in 2010. Artist with a scholarship from the National School of Painting, Engraving and Sculpture "La Esmeralda" founded in 1927 in Mexico City. He was from 2014 to 2016, assisting the master ceramist Rubén Durán Cerrato in the management of the ceramic workshop. He is a fervent lover of nature, which is reflected in his artistic work. He is currently dedicated to the research, production, teaching and commercialization of artistic and utilitarian ceramics in the city of Bogota. Nicolás Bonilla. Lives and works in Bogotá. He is a historian with a specialization in Art History and Theory at the Universidad de los Andes and a Master's degree in Curatorial Studies at the University of Essex, UK. He has been linked to public cultural institutions such as the National Museum of Colombia and the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History doing curatorial research and organizing exhibitions. He now devotes his time to university teaching, writing about modern art, exhibition management and mainly ceramics. She spends most of her life at Partícula, Taller de Cerámica, her studio. There she makes clay stones and teaches workshops. WWW.MAPART.CO
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Cecilia Ordóñez París. (left to right) Exalted Animal, Stoneware with engobe and glaze, 19 x 40 x 40 cm, 2019-2020. Price: $ 1,900 USD Lettuce #1, Porcelain with impressions, 1280, 16 x 14 cm, 2021. Price: $ 650 USD Red Clam, Porcelain and enamels, 18 x 36 x 27 cm, 2021. Price: $ 1,200 USD Ochre Glacier with Hole, Stoneware with integrated granulated manganese, 62 x 40 x 25 cm, 2009. Price: $ 2,400 USD WWW.MAPART.CO
Bernardo Montoya. From the Volcanoes series. Clay, cobalt, iron, copper and manganese oxides and magma. Burns at 1230 Cº Variable sizes, 2020. Price: 280 USD - 400 USD
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Nicolás Bonilla. (top to bottom) Sea Bugs, ceramic in glass jar, 27.5 x 10 cm. 2018. Price: $ 150 USD each Monolitos, smoked ceramic in pit fire, variable measures, 2021. Price: $ 540 USD -660 COP
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Felipe González (left to right) From the series Constelaciones ocni, High temperature ceramic and saggar, 10 x 7 cm x 7cm, 2020-21. Price: $ 70 USD each
Constellation of the sea, High temperature ceramic 1225°, 45 x 25 cm, 2021. Price: $ 350 USD Yellow constellation, High temperature ceramic 1225°, 20 x 15 cm, 2021. Price: $ 140 USD WWW.MAPART.CO
LINA PARDO
(Bogotá, Colombia.) Lives and works in Bogotá.
For years Lina Pardo has produced functional ceramics on a domestic scale. She works with a few defined forms that serve a variety of purposes and aspires with them to highlight the value of the domestic in our lives. She also builds series of small format sculptures in which she takes advantage of the particularities of the different clays, sometimes with a delicate finesse, sometimes in a direct, raw expression. Lina is as interested in the symbolic aspect of ceramics as in its visual and tactile qualities. Her pieces are often arranged in compositions reminiscent of Morandi's paintings. Her work conveys a message of serenity that invites contemplation. More recent explorations include printing abstract images on paper, reminiscent of the surfaces of her ceramics.
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Lina Pardo, Mini Terracotta Landscape, Two pieces of terracotta ceramic on iron, 35 x 20 x 10cm, 2020
Lina Pardo, Glazed landscape, Two pieces of glazed ceramic on slate, 35 x 16 x 30 cm.
Price: $ 530 USD
Price: $ 600 USD
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Lina Pardo, Teapot, glazed ceramic on slate, various dimensions. 2018 Price: $ 320 USD ea.
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Lina Pardo, Mountain Range, Five glazed ceramic pieces, on iron, 90 x 20 x 20cm, 2017. Price: $ 900 USD
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Lina Pardo, Dish, glazed ceramic, 30cm diameter, 2019. Price: $ 120 USD
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This Exhibition is organized by: Montenegro Art Projects Art consulting company based in Bogota that develops art projects internationally. Our reason for being is to
create links between people and the fascinating world of art beyond the simple acquisition of works, sharing experiences around the creative process, and open a permanent dialogue with contemporary art protagonists in Latin America. We are convinced that through art, we can broaden our perspective as individuals and as a society.
Liliana Becerra Liliana is a Design & Trend Strategist, CMF Design expert, Author and Curator, based in Los Angeles. In 2008, she founded STUDIO LILIANA BECERRA Inc. a design firm advising international companies and brands on strategic trend foresight and advanced CMF Design. She has been a guest curator for the Danish Design Center and her work has been exhibited at international venues including the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in New York.
More information: info@mapart.co / +57-313-820-2474 mapart.co
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