The Contemporary Art Modern Project is pleased to announce an online solo exhibition featuring works from artist Ana Garces Kiley. This exhibition analyzes the artist’s use of translucent and opaque materials that are associated with traditional feminine and masculine energies respectively. To achieve translucency, Garces Kiley uses materials such as lutradur and denril paper; the opaqueness is achieved with materials like poplar wood and polyester. This juxtaposition of opacities interacting in a state of In-between-ness, is what inhabits Garces Kiley’s artistic practice.

In-between-ness invites us to observe the inner conversations taking place in our subconscious as we attempt to define our unique personal concept of balance. These inner conversations touch on themes related to sex, desire, death, and origin. In her works Garces Kiley creates a safe space for the viewer to ponder these traditionally taboo themes within our society. In her pieces, the artist purposely omits the definition of shapes, which gives the viewer the freedom to create their own interpretation and meaning. This state of liminal space that takes place in Garces Kiley’s work is an opportunity to access our most complex ideas, to think about how masculine and feminine energies interact within ourselves producing our persona and how this persona is defined in our subconscious. This exhibition could also serve as a reflection of the seemingly never ending interplay between opposing energies that can shape our minds, opinions and values. All these possibilities are suggested in Garces Kiley's works in a way that is both aesthetically pleasing, and philosophically fertile.

For example, the pieces Entre el aliento y la saliva V and Entre el aliento y la saliva XI depict two anthropomorphic figures that interact closely with each other and with animal imagery, this merging of shapes leads the viewer to an idea of human/animal interaction with the divine, a dichotomy inside another dichotomy. Veiled lady (In bloom) is another piece with anthropomorphic qualities featuring a figure wearing a skirt-like garment. Garces Kiley explained to Camp, that this piece was directly inspired by a mushroom with the same name. The scientific name of the Veiled lady (In bloom) mushroom is Phallus indusiatus, due to its phallic resembling structure. By featuring phallic iconography in the work Veiled lady (In bloom), breaks the human boundaries of gender, imposed on nature. Garces Kiley creates this rich universe of dualities and welcomes us to observe and participate with our own dichotomies and contradictions.

The pieces selected for this online exhibition revolve around the idea of accessing our deepest, most complex, concepts of life while observing them through the feminine and masculine energies that exist within ourselves and that can be represented or found along the entire spectrum of light. They invite us to explore our own perceptions and prejudices in the important discourse that takes place between the feminine and masculine energies, letting light in and out as we slowly define our personal meanings.

(Statement and curation by Ena Castillo-Barillas)