Saskia Juárez

Centro Cultural Plaza Fátima presents En presencia de la luz, an exhibition by artist Saskia Juárez as part of the cycle of projects, Tránsitos, manchas, trayectos, huellas: de trazos a paisajes. 

In addition to the 60 years she has been painting the mountains, and therefore, offering us the view that lasts the time of a lifetime, Saskia Juarez, has intervened, in her own way, some of the alterations that the landscape has suffered due to human action, erasing in many occasions its presence, filling the foreground of her paintings with vegetation, despite its absence in the current landscape. This gesture speaks to us of an interest in preserving and retaining an image of the mountain, an image that is not fixed either, that is never the same; in this particular series of Chinese ink on oil, her intention is to show us how the mountains and their landscapes will always be different, since the life that exists and sprouts, and the imposing presence of the white light of the desert, make the representation a simple witness; and it is through this certainty of contemplation that Saskia Juárez proposes us to look. Contrary to other modernisms, Saskia has not deconstructed the planes of the landscape, but worked tirelessly to capture with greater precision the tonality of light, the materiality of the fold, from the close-up vision that characterizes the desert landscape. Undertaking a record of the mountains with the desire not to dominate but to preserve, anticipated this new relationship that contemporary art has established with the landscape, particularly from ecofeminism, where it is understood that the principle of patriarchal domination extends from the body to the landscape and back. The corporeality of the mountain is not only notable in the work of Saskia Juárez, but it sustains the entire production. Saskia Juárez's work is an invitation to contemplate the world, to open our eyes, and to make viewing an act of resistance. Painting the mountains as an act of resistance is a necessarily political gesture in a world in extinction.

— Virginie Kastel Ornielli

On the opening night, at 7pm, there will be the talk “transits, stains, traces, traces: from traces to landscapes” with the artists Thom Díaz, Saskia Juárez, Cristy Martínez, Raúl Márquez, Djordje Stanojevic (CEDIM), Jesús Malaventura, and Rosa María Benard.