Strolling (from port to port), by María Luisa Ruiz-Tagle
The Centro Cultural de Cascais presents DEAMBULAR (from port to port), a monographic exhibition dedicated to the work of Chilean artist María Luisa Ruiz-Tagle. The exhibition is unprecedented in Portugal.
In the paintings exhibited at the Centro Cultural de Cascais, María Luisa Ruiz-Tagle depicts urban scenes she captured during her wanderings through the streets of cities like Santiago de Chile and Lisbon, amidst the constant movement of people and things. On the linen of the canvases, the scenes she observed disintegrate into small fragments of acrylic and oil paint, always between white and black.
"DEAMBULAR (from port to port)" is curated by Eugenio Dittborn, also Chilean and one of the most prominent names in Chilean art, credited for his role in the renewal and strengthening of art produced in Chile during the Pinochet years and post-redemocratization. Ruiz-Tagle acknowledges Dittborn as one of the main supporters of her work.
The fragmented texture observed in Ruiz-Tagle's works is the result of a technique in which the artist manipulates the natural repellency that occurs when oil paints come into contact with water. For the curator, this technique is the vehicle through which María Luisa Ruiz-Tagle expresses her art most powerfully. These are paintings that "accumulate points to make a mobile fabric, for a city that breathes, changes, and fades."
"My work is to integrate and disintegrate matter. I work with oil paints and water-based acrylic paints that repel each other, creating an atmosphere, sometimes confusing, sometimes visible. Integration and disintegration occur in both directions. The world seems to be falling apart, but at the same time, it is reintegrating in a different way," says the artist.
Regarding the process of deciding which scenes to paint, the artist explains: "I encounter these people in my wanderings through the streets of different cities; the moment we cross paths lasts only a few seconds, but for some reason, they catch my attention, and I decide to photograph them and then, in the studio, paint them. For me, this mystery of synchronicity is wonderful; capturing their gestures at that moment, amidst the crowd, is a gift."
María Luisa Ruiz-Tagle was born in 1962 in Santiago de Chile. She studied Special Education in Hearing and Language Disorders at the University of Chile and Human Figure Drawing and Color Interaction at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Later, she studied Sculpture in workshops at the Finis Terrae University and painting in the studios of important Chilean artists. Since 2015, she has been working under the guidance of Eugenio Dittborn.
Learn more about "DEAMBULAR (from port to port)," by María Luisa Ruiz-Tagle:HERE
More information: +351 214 815 660 | geral@fdl.pt
Organization: Câmara Municipal de Cascais | Fundação D. Luís I | Bairro dos Museus