Textos | Texts
- Jaime Contreras
- Adriana Cantoral
Jaime Contreras
EXHIBITION TEXT
SENSATIO
PAOLA BÁRCENA
Contemporary photography is characterized by being a constant construction and reconstruction of reality, a mirage and a permanent simulacrum that artists appropriate to generate new languages and proposals.
Since the invention of photography in 1826 by the Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, landscapes have played a fundamental role in its development. However, it wasn't until a little over a decade later that technological advances in cameras allowed budding photographers to capture more accurate depictions of nature. During the early years, photography was limited to being only a mere imitation of reality, but little by little the artists and photographers of that time realized the possibilities they had to elevate it to the status of artwork. The photographers of the Pictorialist movement at the end of the 19th century are among the first to seek to break away from the traditional processes of image representation and experiment with image manipulation.
For Paola Bárcena, like many of the photographers of historical Pictorialism, the landscape becomes a Leitmotif, her starting point. She appropriates reality, but does not copy it; she seeks, through manipulation, to build new realities; she seeks to produce mental states that, through contemplation, generate sensations, turning perceptual activity into an aesthetic experience.
Investigating and experimenting on image perception processes has been her main motivation. Articulating multiple possibilities of recognition opens the door for her to also venture into new media such as video and installation. The image is no longer just static, but now also dynamic.
"SENSATIO" is the result of her constant processes of image construction. It is a range of multiple possibilities that arise from her experiments and now seeks to generate sensations in the viewer; sensations created through a shift in perception. Color, movement, and sound are elements that now complement each other to achieve new polysensory processes.
For Paola Bárcena, the journey is, in itself, an act with symbolic value, and the origin of images as a physical space is the prominent element present/absent in her work. The artworks never betray their origin; they remain what they are, but they are no longer what they were. Each viewer confers new values and meanings to them, and each place contributes new possibilities for interpretation.
Her images are not for the eyes; they are for the mind, and reality is no longer anything other than what you construct for yourself.
Jaime Contreras
CURATOR
Text for "Sensatio" Exhibition
Second Floor, Museo de la Memoria Universitaria Puebla, México, july 2023
Jaime Contreras
EXHIBITION TEXT
PERCEPTIO
PAOLA BÁRCENA
PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION
“The Psychology or Theory of Gestalt” (or Theory of Form) focuses on studying the mental processes of people and affirms that the mind configures the elements that reach it through perception and/or memory. Thus, each individual constructs reality and interprets it, and these elements unconsciously help us make decisions based on mental figures or forms. Basically, "Gestalt Theory" proposes a psychological approach in which people have an active participation in the construction of their reality and its meanings, starting from their experiences, beliefs or circumstances and re-contextualizing their shapes and images from their standpoints and their own way of perceiving the world.
In “PERCEPTIO”, Paola Bárcena turns the exhibition into a visual laboratory where the artist tweaks the concept of perception and the observers experiment what they perceive as reality, even though it is not authentic. Her photographs become experimental tools of the "Gestalt Theory" and force the viewers permanently to discern, identify, remember and discover the images —even though they are not real—, continually testing their perceptive ability: reality no longer matters.
Our brain is so used to photography being totally explicit and descriptive that when a change of perspective is generated or the image is re-contextualized, even with a small twist, it can completely modify the perception of the work, making it abstract and forcing people to give it a different reading, that can range from the metaphysical and mysterious to the irrational.
In this exhibition, Paola Bárcena reproduces reality and then hides it in plain sight, she only gives clues so that everyone can discover or simply interpret it to their liking, manipulating our perception ability and turning each work into a paradox; it is and it is not simultaneously. If at any time the images returned to their original form, to their starting point, they would automatically lose their meaning and vanish. Our perception is pushed to the limit.
The intention of each photograph is that we do not stop observing it, looking at it while we try to decrypt its meaning, and that we continue looking even when we have already discovered its essence.
“PERCEPTIO” is a turning point in the artist's career, after moving from architecture to photography. Her new work is no longer subordinated to portraying reality: she now seeks to step beyond the dependency on the traditional.
Photography has given her a broad field for experimentation, a nomadic technique that matches her current reality and offers the possibility of a continuous relation to space (inherited from her career as an architect), that —in the context of her demanding and generous nature— creates the opportunity to permanently reinvent herself.
CURATOR
Jaime Contreras
Text for "Perceptio" Exhibition
Museum Room Juan Cordero, Casa de la Cultura Puebla, México, september 2021
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