Michelle Galavíz

Liebre Li bre presents the closing og the exhibition Plegarias y Rituales by Michelle Galavíz.

This body of work grew out of a moment of rupture: a shift in the way Michelle experienced sight. When light stopped feeling guaranteed, it turned into something else—a question. The everyday landscape suddenly felt fragile. The vastness of the sky collapsed into something much smaller, much more immediate: the flame of a candle.

In Plegarias y Rituales, Michelle isn’t painting religion. She’s painting intention.

A candle burning all the way down. Cooking while thinking about the people who will share the meal. Objects quietly holding and bending light.

In these works, painting becomes a kind of meditation. Each object is looked at long enough that it stops being just a thing and starts becoming something else. The candle stops being a candle—it becomes focus. The kitchen stops being just a room—it becomes care. The dim light isn’t simply darkness—it’s a moment of transition.

After facing the possibility of losing her sight, Michelle began painting from the memory of light rather than its certainty. These paintings aren’t about reproducing what the eye sees, but about holding on to what remains when vision itself becomes uncertain.

The series invites a slower way of looking. Let your eyes adjust. Sit with the shadow. Allow the image to reveal itself gradually.

In a world that constantly demands speed, efficiency, and output, simply stopping to observe can feel almost radical. Turning everyday gestures into rituals becomes a way of resisting that numb, automated rhythm.

These oil paintings—some large and immersive, others quieter and more intimate—build atmospheres where the sacred and the ordinary mirror each other. Nothing here is exaggerated. Everything is concentrated.

The question running through the series isn’t really about aesthetics. It’s more personal than that.

How do you hold on to the light when it feels like it might slip away?

— Liebre Li bre