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Praxis International Art is pleased to present ∞, the solo exhibition by Alejandra Padilla. A reception to
celebrate the opening will be held at 541 West 25th Street, on Thursday February 21st, from 6-8 pm.
What if “Truth” in some very large and, for us, overriding sense is information not about what we perceive (the
green leaves, the stones, that voice, that face) but about the process of perception?
It seems to be a universal feature of human perception, … ,
that the perceiver shall perceive only the product of his perceiving act.
He shall not perceive the means by which that product was created.
The end result is, in a way, a work of art.
Gregory Bateson
Alejandra Padilla entered the public sphere of Argentinean fine arts by taking part in two group exhibitions in 1994,
(I’m tempted to write ‘only’) eleven years ago. She has been featured in many group exhibitions and six solo shows
since then.
She has become increasingly and deservedly renowned through the years. The aesthetic strength and the formal
power of her works in relation to their unusual elaboration process “without a single drop of paint” have been widely
praised. Fragmentation, by cutting off high resolution photographs –usually taken from the field of fashion and
luxury print journalism media–; multiplication by photocopy of those fragments; composition and in many cases
photocopy of photocopies of specific modules; these elements are glued on a canvas base, all through a manual
technique that requires extreme thoroughness in conjunction with a massive amount of patience. The perceptual
contact with her works and the resulting aesthetic experience do not allow the recipient to foresee in its entirety
the industrious effort that leads to the final outcome. Each one of the works, of course, can lead to diverse
interpretations, and the names that the artist gives to them will tend to stimulate or to advise against one reading
or the other.
Eliseo Veron
Alejandra Padilla’s work is a tour de force of intricate work achieved since the late 80s. Paper cuttings that repeat
themselves stuck together as so many stitches to “embroider” obsessive patterns on a hard support are the basics
of the work by Padilla. The object or form may be an almost anonymous shape or a jewel. The structure changes
from piece to piece; it may be linear or chaotic, concrete or abstract, dynamic or static….She draws us into her
work through clever manipulations of our expectations. The interest in her creations lie in the uncertainty generated
by Padilla about the conventions we accept regarding how images function.
Elena Oliveras
Praxis International Art was founded in Buenos Aires in 1977. With the broad spectrum of its program, Praxis
plays a vital role as a nexus between artists, collectors, curators, and art critics throughout the world, and is an
important reference point within the Latin American cultural sphere.
Contemporary artist, Alejandra Padilla was born in San Miguel de Tucuman, Argentina, in 1961. She studied
journalism at the J.F.Kennedy University and Art History at the UBA University, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Early in
her career she worked as a journalist, an art dealer and as a curator.
In 1994 she presented her first work as a visual artist, Angeles de luz I, at a group show in Centro Cultural Recoleta
in Buenos Aires, in 1997 she has her first solo exhibition a the Ricardo Rojas Cultural Art Center, in the same city.
Throughout the years, her work has become known all over the world, taking part in the most important art fairs,
such as, Art Basel, Art Bologna, Art Chicago, Arco, ArteBA, Pinta, Pulse, and Texas Contemporary Art Fair.
Her pieces belong to international private collections as well as to collections of prestigious museums and
institutions including: Fundación Fortabat (Argentina), Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin
(US) and the
University of Essex Art Collection (Colchester, England).
Currently, Alejandra is represented by Praxis International Art, and lives and works between Buenos Aires and New York.
www.praxis-art.com
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