Press Release

Reception for the artist: Friday, April 18th, 5 to 7pm.

Gebert Contemporary is pleased to open the season with an exhibition of new work by Perla Krauze. The scope of the artist’s new work includes complex panel paintings, wall and floor sculpture, as well as a series of installation works. This exciting new body of work was inspired by Krauze’s exploration of the southwest, and the juxtaposition of the landscape’s rugged terrain with its delicate, isolated life forms. Travels to the Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde National Park, Canyon de Chelly National Monument, and White Sands National Monument were the source of rich and delicate impressions, where Krauze explored such “artifacts” as flowers, stones, and “road rubbings” in the manner of an archeologist. Documenting each stop along the way, leaving barely a delicate footprint, the artist expresses the memory of the site with rubbings on paper, cast resin and aluminum, and charcoal and graphite on canvas. Included in the exhibition are paintings that have imprints of site-specific spaces executed while Krauze was artist-in-residence at the Santa Fe Art Institute. “Some kind of trace of the real thing is very important to me to start to convey the memory of the site, and from there the work begins to build,” said Krauze from her studio in Mexico City. There is a mysterious, seductive quality that pervades Krauze’s work, and this brings the viewer to a closer examination of the materials, only to be intrigued again by the exploration of the seemingly ordinary, made monumental.

Perla Krauze studied in Mexico City as well as London University and the Chelsea College of Art, London. Krauze has exhibited internationally at museums and galleries in Paris, Madrid, and London. Her work has also been included in the Bienal de la Habana in Havana, Cuba.