Ruth Benzacar Art Gallery opens its 2023 season presenting Catalina León in Room 1, with this exhibition that brings together embroideries and paintings on various supports, created between 2014 and 2022.
Text by Juliana Iriart
“…In the pieces, there are parts made with intention and others that are traces — a loose brushstroke made while on the way to something else. Sometimes I see my work as the mark a snail leaves behind as it passes; but even when I drift away, I always return to painting as a refuge — as a floating space where vitality is renewed.”
— C. León
Divine Simultaneity, Guardian and Ally of the Unknown
By Juliana Iriart
Weekend Painter gathers paintings and embroideries that Catalina made over nearly nine years. These long periods of work come naturally to her — she tends to let the material set the rhythm of production. They also reflect how her artistic practice alternates with other pursuits and facets of life.
“…In the pieces, there are parts made with intention and others that are traces — a loose brushstroke made while on the way to something else. Sometimes I see my work as the mark a snail leaves behind as it passes; but even when I drift away, I always return to painting as a refuge — as a floating space where vitality is renewed.”
When I look at her paintings, I feel as though I am on the verge of remembering something — something I dreamed, something I felt before I could speak, something I was born with.
How can one tell an entire story all at once, in a single moment?
By painting!
For her, painting is
“…a deity that, even when seen, never ceases to be invisible. When it wishes, it appears, clears the gaze, anchors, opens the chest, places ears upon the forehead…”
How many times have we asked the gods to show themselves, to guide us?
Let’s ask with honesty!
If we surrender to what comes in response, we might dare to feel something as true as it is unknown — something that allows us to discover or remember who we really are.
Of course, since in our world nothing exists without its opposite, there also come urges to stop believing, to give up, to seek only the answers that let our minds convince us we understand everything — the desire to forget completely in order to survive.
To feel without needing to understand — that is an adventure full of life!
That’s what these works invite us to.
In this exhibition, we can sway between past and future, among creatures, holes, songs, sweat, flowers, lines, feathers, springs, shadows, veils, earth, beauty, suns, fears, sadness, love, joy, tremors, orbits, boredom, pain, strength. In this present moment, nothing — nothing, nothing — is left out.
It grants us the right to get lost, to let ourselves be carried away by the painting, which often seems to emanate itself.
In Weekend Painter, there is so much visible that we need courage to get to know the invisible — the untouchable? — within it. And here I fully understand her snail metaphor: when I recall the feeling I get the morning after a damp night, and by chance I see, from a particular angle in the light, an iridescent trail — and curiosity suddenly strikes:
What need, desire, or sorrow led it there?
Why didn’t it take the shortcut of straight lines?
Where is it now?
Did it find what it was seeking?
When I saw one of her works reflected in water, I thought of Ophelia’s tragedy. But immediately a new, present air filled me. I felt a new Ophelia — more alive than ever — one who chooses, knows, speaks, acts, is free here and now, and it doesn’t cost her her life!
There is a power that permeates every being and every thing.
Let us surrender to it — let us feel with the true and profound logic that dreams offer, where everything we know conspires to show us what we need to see.
The flight of birds, snails, stars, coffee grounds.
A letter found on the street, or a butterfly that enters through the window at just the right moment…
I belong to the group of people who enjoy oracles and synchronicities.
I don’t believe they can predict the future.
What I love is when they appear by chance and slip a question into my plans.
I like going through life with the feeling that, at any moment, I could enter into complicity with a tree, a song playing from a taxi, or a loose floor tile.
Painting knows about this.
The desire to make this exhibition began to grow when I realized it could also be a chance to share this fondness for dialogue with oracles.
In one section of this room hang 64 phrases — passages I underlined in the I Ching, waiting to be taken like fortune cookies…
I Ching, or The Book of Changes, is a wisdom text from ancient China, whose mythical origins date back around 3000 BCE. It describes 64 situations that societies and individuals might face, and the possible ways of responding to them. It is an oracular text: one poses a question and then tosses coins, whose result determines which passage should be read at that moment.
The situations are often described through analogies with water, wind, wood, animals, and so on. It’s a complex book — radiant in its clarity and yet cryptic. Reading it today, its patriarchal perspective may feel distant; yet, if we can transcend that, we can access the concentrated wisdom it holds.
I wanted to share parts of this book because it has guided me through key moments in my life. The underlined phrases are my personal selections — by no means do they summarize the text. The version I used is the one translated from Chinese into German by sinologist Richard Wilhelm, and from German into Spanish by D.J. Vogelmann. Vogelmann also wrote a preface in which he says:
“(…) Every clear question carries within itself the answer.”
If you arrived here with some question in mind, I invite you to walk through these paintings while giving shape to it. And if not, you can still take with you a phrase — chosen deliberately or at random. It may be that, somewhere in time, those words and your body will meet.
Catalina León
March 2023
