Sand and Magma catalogue

Opening Wednesday 9 October at 6.00pm Opened by His Excellency Ambassador Raúl Gangotena Ambassador of Ecuador

QCA and the Embassy of Ecuador proudly present an exhibition of recent work by Ecuadorian artist Michael Ayala, tracing his journeys between Brisbane, the Galapagos Islands and Ecuador.

His Excellency, Ambassador Raúl Gangotena will officially open the exhibition, to coincide with Independence of Guayaquil Day in Ecuador.

Sand and Magma, the Legacy of the Ocean

by Michael Ayala Ayala 9 October – 19 October Webb Gallery, Queensland College of Art Ground Floor,Webb Centre Bulding Griffith University South Bank Campus Gallery opening hours Tuesday to Saturday 10.00am – 5.00pm

Michael Ayala Ayala

Sand and Magma, The Legacy of the Ocean Webb Gallery, Queensland College of Art 9 October – 19 October

Sand and Magma, The Legacy of the Ocean – Paula Quintela Ecuadorian artist Michael Ayala presents us with a series of paintings and ceramic pieces that explore and highlight the similarities of the diverse flora and fauna of the Australian natural environment to those found in the Galapagos Island. To that effect, he takes forward concepts from his 1999 works on the Galapagos, developed after moving to the island and imbedding himself within the local community of farmers and fisherman.

Early in his career Ayala employed painting as a means of expression, drawing influence and inspiration from established Ecuadorean painters such as Villacís, Egas, Tábara, Román and Almeida. After returning from a North and South American tour in 1990, Ayala presented his first solo exhibition at the Colonial Art Museum of Quito. The exhibition included works he completed in Toronto, New York and Mexico. At this time, Ayala made a significant change of direction, both personally and artistically, being inspired by Ecuadorian tradition, and began experimenting with terracotta and ceramics. Through his own personal visual language, Ayala represents contemporary environmental issues.

He employs painting, ceramic and terracotta mediums enriched with recycled and found materials like wood, fabric and tin. Natural elements, such as seeds and innate pigments are often used to emulate the colours of the landscape.

Michael Ayala Ayala Artist’s Statement Volcanic ash is also an evident medium in Ayala’s work, since his garden became engulfed after the eruption of one of Ecuador’s most active volcanoes; Reventador, in 2002. Wanting to express the representation and interaction of nature, Ayala exposes his work directly to the environment and elements, such as the heat of the sun, resulting in unique surface treatments, such as the distinctive crackling finishes. Here the influence can be traced back to the 1960 work Filigrana’s (lattice) by Aníbal Villacís. Influenced by Pre-Columbian ancestors, the Filigranas works were typically mixed media on masonite, wood or canvas combined with applications of marble dust, sand, metal, plaster, and paint, gold or silver leaf, often layered and scraped back to reveal the layers beneath.

Historically, Ayala’s work demonstrates a conceptual position inherited from the Latin American Abstract movement, which materialised in the early 1950s in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Artist Camilo Egas had an important role in the foundations of the abstract movement, as a response to the rise of Socialism in Latin America in 1926. This stemmed from his involvement in the formation of Movimient Indegenista together with Oswaldo Guayasamin. In 1930, Egas created the group known as Los Avanzados (The precursors) together with Pedro León and José Moscoso. Los Avanzados had introduced social realism

as a shift in the mentality and style of the time. This shift came in line with literature, which was striving to rescue the authentic national and Latin American culture.

With the emergence and adoption of abstraction in the 1950’s, progressive artists in Guayaquil embraced Geometrical Abstraction and lyrical Abstraction.

While Quito, the capital of Ecuador, remained the centre of the modernised Indian figurative art, such as expressionism and political art.

The following generations of artists continued to innovate as they explored the use of abstract language in contrast to naturalism, and as a mean to reconnect with the ancestral culture. Latin American artists wanted to express their cultural identity in agreement with modern tendencies, while still linking them with elements of their old values. Michael Ayala latest works Magma and Sand, the Legacy of the Ocean were created while in Australia. These art works reflects on his observations of the forces of nature and how they transform the natural landscape. Ayala also portrays the importance of magma as primal material of our planet.

Ayala’s art works are a visual description of a volcanic landscape, as textures, faces and renderings reflect

the red and black rivers, the strength of blue skies the power of wind, sun and water. The techniques of laying pigments, sand, and water on canvases and letting them being affected by the environment combine and allow Ayala to address the enviromental impact issues passionate within the artist.

‘I have started with blank canvases and I have left my human print as a reminiscence of my primal instincts with sand, soil and clay. I have enjoyed and suffered my intervention on the canvas and I have stopped just before ruining the artwork or feeling frustrated about the results’.

Ayala’s awareness of social and environmental issues is not the foremost component if his work. The physical reality of painting, such as the tactile and visual is his first subject. He expresses his creative experiences, first as physical and sensuous, through his devotion to materials and their properties. Ayala rigorously maintains his palate to as few colors as possible, focusing in evoking the textures and colors of nature: Water, lava, volcanic ash and skies, along with the earth in which they are enveloped. A relationship between, art, earth and spirituality inherit from preColumbian art and are embedded in the work of many contemporary Latin American artists.

This work reflects my personal discovery of the significance of magma as the primal substance of our planet that gave shape and body to the Galapagos Islands and became the sand, clay, and soil of the East Coast of Australia.

I have explored the aesthetics and power of natural elements that shape natural landscapes, both in the Galapagos Islands and Australia, as a result of the impact of water, sun and wind. I have used rough materials collected in nature, and I have contrasted them against the blank canvass, using pigments, water, resins, and finally using the sun and wind as a source of energy to give final shape to the artwork.

The impact of the natural agents on elements like rocks, sand and soil gives a particular aesthetic and a special appearance to natural landscapes such as marshes and coastlines in nature. That is the effect that I have looked for in my interventions. I have started with blank canvasses and I have left my human print as a reminiscence of my primal instincts with sand, soil and clay. I have enjoyed and suffered my intervention on the canvas and I have stopped just before ruining the artwork or feeling frustrated about the results.

The artwork I am showing speaks of the human footprint or the ecological impact of humans on nature. It can also be perceived as a metaphor for the dynamics of the planet as a whole and the interconnection of elements and ecosystems, using the similarities and differences between the Galapagos Islands and Australia. Both are the most beautiful places where I’ve had the opportunity to live, enjoy life, and evolve.