AXIS MUNDI

Axis Mundi
Octavio Aguilar, Ricardo Cuevas & Patricia Belli
Parallel Oaxaca 14 Dec – 15 ene, 2024
www.paralleloaxaca.com Parallel Oaxaca is pleased to present the exhibition Axis Mundi, bringing together works by Octavio Aguilar, Ricardo Cuevas and Patricia Belli as topologies with corporeal resonance. Exploring shattered fragments of memory as temporalized representations that translate intimate concerns, the works evoke imaginative perceptions that have the ability to complete figurations of a body’s presence. In the artworks the human body is implied to contrasts pulsational surfaces connected through operations of deep individuality; processes in which the artists internalize and navigate memories and textures. The exhibition expands figurations where bodies inhabit formal materialities, present both as carnal substance and as a narrative form that unfolds; as a “tactile link” between volume and surface, body and symbol, presence and absence. Patricia Belli presents the sculpture Mama (2021), the work creates an encounter with the artist's practice and her relationship to materialize the body’s absent presence. Recognizing itself through the operation of memory, Patricia Belli's sculpture questions the passage of time, grief and absence. Composed of textile elements and clothing fragments, the sculpture has the evocative form of a parachute that recently landed, combining emotions from mourning integrated by the artist as a landscape and tribute to the bodily resonance diluted by the death of her mother. Ricardo Cuevas Fear nor thunder nor lightning (2006) presents in video the act of reading carried out by blind with book in Braille. The text was printed over landscape images, and describes someone walking through a forest. Although the images are vetated to the blind, they are given access to part of the meaning through the text. If we cannot read the text in Braille, we get closer to its content in some way thanks to the reading/action of the blind person who, with his hands, literally crosses a forest. Octavio Aguilar presents WIIN JËJP (2020), an oil on canvas that describes the artist's research into concepts and words of the Ayuuk language and culture. Given the complicated relationship between translations, methodologies such as “parallelisms” or, for example, “diphrasisms” have been created, which consist of the union of two completely different words and that generate a new concept. In the Ayuuk language, to name our face, there is the parallelism called “Wiin Jëjp” which means eye-nose. From this concept it is established that to make an Ayuuk portrait only the eyes and nose of the person to be represented must be painted; When executing the piece, the blank space of the frame is left intact to try to function as a metaphor for what, on an individual level, was considered a “void” and which now begins to take shape, generating its own face/identity. Patricia Belli (1964, Managua) Lives and works in Managua, Nicaragua. She graduated from Loyola Southern University in New Orleans with a bachelor's degree in visual arts. Ten years later, he graduated in Arts and Letters from the UCA of Managua and in 1999 received a Fulbright scholarship to pursue a Master of Fine Arts at the San Francisco Art Institute, which he completed in 2001. Upon his return to Nicaragua in 2001, Belli founded the Space for Artistic Research and Reflection, EspIRA, an association dedicated to the critical and sensitive training of emerging Central American artists. Her recent exhibitions include: Hordaland Kunstsenter, Norway; DAAD Artist Residency Berlin, Germany; Ser Sin Serlo at Villa Vassillief, France, where she was a Pernod Ricard Fellow (2018); Balance and Collapse in TEOR/éTica, Costa Rica (2016), Ortiz Gurdian Foundation, Nicaragua (2017), Artecentro, Guatemala (2017); and Fágiles in TEOR/éTica, Costa Rica (2015). Her work has also recently been included in ARCO, Madrid (2021), the 10th Berlin Biennale of Contemporary Art (2018) and the 38th EVA International, Ireland (2018). Upcoming exhibition at DAAD Gallery, Berlin. Ricardo Cuevas (1978, CDMX) Master in Visual Arts. He has participated in artistic residencies at venues such as: International Studio and Curatorial Program (NY); Kulturkontakt (Vienna); Banff Center for the Arts (Canada); Polytechnic university of Valencia. He has exhibited in museums such as the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, Power Plant (Toronto), Guangdong Museum of Art (China), Stanley Brown Pavilion (Amsterdam), Dom Museum (Vienna), Museo Carrillo Gil and Centro de la Imagen. His work has been awarded the Young Creators scholarship on 3 occasions in the area of photography. Octavio Aguilar (1986, Santiago Zacatepec) lives and works between Oaxaca and Zacatepec. He studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Oaxaca. He has exhibited individually at Parallel Oaxaca, collectively at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, Museo Carrillo Gil, CDMX; Chopo University Museum, CDMX; Museum of the Oaxacan Painters, Oaxaca, Casa San Agustin; IAGO, Oaxaca; among others. He participated in the 6th BBVA Bancomer / MACG Carrillo Gil program. He coordinates the Ayuuk Workshop, a pedagogical/artistic proposal that takes up legends, myths, stories, flora and fauna of the Mixe region. He is currently a member of the National Creator System.

Parallel Oaxaca Calle Santo Tomás 123 esq. José López Alavez Barrio Xochimilco 68040 Oaxaca, México

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