Curated by: Marina Gluckman
“Rippling small. Rippling grey, innumerable waves spread beneath us.
I touch nothing. I see nothing. We may sink and settle on the waves.
The sea will drum in my ears. The white petals will be darkened with sea water.
They will float for a moment and then sink. Rolling over the waves will shoulder me under.
Everything falls in a tremendous shower, dissolving me.”
- Virginia Woolf, The Waves (1931)
I touch nothing. I see nothing. We may sink and settle on the waves.
The sea will drum in my ears. The white petals will be darkened with sea water.
They will float for a moment and then sink. Rolling over the waves will shoulder me under.
Everything falls in a tremendous shower, dissolving me.”
- Virginia Woolf, The Waves (1931)
6BASE is pleased to present Blanca Guerrero: Corrientes, a solo exhibition featuring the artist's new paintings as well as a selection of her recent photographs. This is the first exhibition at 6BASE’s new location at Art Cake in Brooklyn.
Guerrero’s most recent body of work explores elements found in nature. She pursues close examination of the layers of movement over water and through wild grasses caused by recurring corrientes.
While nature exists out of our control––wild, ever-changing, and at times disaster-causing––Guerrero’s work presents a counterbalance to chaos. Her observational abstract paintings focus on the harmonious moments in which elements from nature move in tandem to create a tranquil moment in space. The artist’s gestural brushstrokes suggest the fluidity and layers of movement in varying cool muted tones. Speaking of her process, Guerrero notes, “I go to a meditative and calming state while I work–– something that I feel when I’m in nature or observing different elements that I don’t have control over but are beautiful to me. I seek to recreate that feeling in the works that I paint.”
Guerrero closely crops her abstract compositions on intimately-sized wooden panels to emphasize the untouched, natural beauty of currents in motion. She is more interested in the intricacies of natural imagery than recreating identifiable landscapes. Some, like Corrientes, S III, seem as though they extend in every direction while others, including Corrientes, S II, are partially framed with a hard-edge line or marked with a horizon line, as seen in Corrientes, S VI (all 2020).
After a recent trip to her native Spain, Guerrero introduced warmer, earthy-tones into her color palette to depict the current of wind moving through wild grasses. While she doesn’t usually paint from a specific moment or thought, Hierbas, I and Hierbas, II (both 2020) were rendered from her memory of where she was when she learned her grandmother had passed away.
Also on view in Corrientes is a selection of Guerrero’s recent photographs of natural landscapes. While photography has always been part of the artist’s practice, this is the first time her photographs have been presented alongside her paintings. Guerrero considers taking photos to be part of her visual diary; a sketchbook in constant development. Her photography informs her paintings and vice versa. In her recent publication, To Sink Revisited, Emmanuel Mauleón notes, “Guerrero employs photography not to preserve what one would typically remember from a scene, but as a point of redirection––she trains the viewer’s focus on that which is often overlooked.”
Like her paintings, Guerrero’s photographs are closely cropped to celebrate the moments in which currents move through natural elements. She is often drawn to textural surfaces and forms, such as shallow water rippling over sand and sunlight ricocheting off waves.
Guerrero’s paintings and photographs, together, in Corrientes offer a sense of stability and calmness, a feeling achieved while being present in nature. The multiple interpretations of a similar phenomenon made consistently across various forms of media lend itself to a sequential experience, allowing a diffusion of meaning over a coherent body of work.
Text by Marina Gluckman
Executive Director of Art Cake
Executive Director of Art Cake
About Blanca GuerreroBlanca Guerrero is a visual artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Born in Madrid, Spain, and raised in New York City, she received a B.F.A. in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design. Guerrero's work has been exhibited in the United States, Spain, and Japan. Most recently, Guerrero’s work was the subject of a solo exhibition To Sink, Revisited at Court Street Gallery, Brooklyn. A catalogue with text by Emmanuel Mauleón was published to accompany the exhibition.
Images:
Corrientes, S III, 2020. Acrylic on wood panel. 12 x 12 in (30.48 x 30.48 cm)
La Romana, I, 2017. Archival pigment print. 10 x 15 in (25.4 x 38.1 cm)
La Romana, II, 2017. Archival pigment print. 10 x 15 in (25.4 x 38.1 cm)
In accordance with COVID-19 regulation, five people will be permitted in the gallery at a time. A face mask must be worn to enter and hand sanitizer will be provided. To reserve a time to visit, please email marina@6base.nyc
Hours: Tuesday - Saturday: 11AM - 6PM
