Colombian
Contemporary Artists’ Recent Work
Xaltemba Gallery
April 5 – April 27, 2008
Artists Albany Henao, Libia Posada and Julian Urrego from
Medellin, Colombia present work at Xalltemba Gallery
addressing very different themes with the common thread of
embroidery as drawing, decoration and weaving. Their work
plays with the references of this medium as a craft, or
'women's work," with exquisite obsessive-compulsiveness
about surfaces and devotion to the hand-made object.
Posada is a doctor and surgeon as well as an established
artist in performance, installation, photography and mixed
media. In her series "Neurografias," she picks apart and
reweaves surgical bandages so they appear as xrays of the
human nervous system, bones and/or the instruments of their
destruction such as tanks and guns. The fragility and
complexity of interior human space is always an allusion to
the pathology of violence and warfare in Colombia (and
everywhere else.) She has shown in the Havana Biennal, the
Medellin Encuentro 07 and the 08 Fotofest, Houston as well
as galleries and museums in New York and Bogota. She is
currently working on a residency project in Venezuela.
Libia Posada's current show at the Station Contemporary
Museum, houston (14 colombian photographers in conjunction
with Fotofestwww.stationmuseum.com.
Julian Urrego obsessively repeats an image of a young boy
and girl in their bathing suits ---siblings who appear
constantly similar yet different. The artist is
the son of a dressmaker and he obfuscates and reveals the
pair with delicate patterning and details of brocades,
collage and and drawing, often using the
scraps from his mother's work. Urrego was an invited artist
to the Dream Project in Cork, Ireland, showed at the museum
of Arte Moderno in Bogota and galleries in Bogota and
Medellin. He has worked on murals, installations and
various collective and individual exhibits of drawing and
painting.
Albany Henao presents a series of portraits of punkeros,
drawings of edgy Medellin young people whose hipness is
contrasted by clunky embroidery and tender patterning. Her
outsider style literally "suits" her subjects. Henao has
has worked on public mural projects in popular barrios in
Medellin, shown at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Bogota and
the Colombian Consulate in New York.
Both Henao and Urrego are associated with Taller 7 in
Medellin, a collective of young artists who share studios,
gallery space, energy and constant individual
and group projects.