Catalina LeónSelection of works

Catalina León Selection of works

El Sacri�cio Inútil (The useles sacri�ce)

“I approach painting as if it were aninterlocutor who is always one step ahead of conscience, creating between us a breach where the mind scratches the surface but is not in control, helping to produce a comprehension leap.”

Mamba, Buenos Aires 2015 Installation. Oli, Acrylic, pencil and embroidery on cotton cloth . Variable measures. 2012-2015

Installation. Rubber plant and avocado leaves hand sewn, raw wool, clay, paste, interventions on the wall, oil on canvas and embroidery. Variable measures. 2009-2011

Muda (Mute/Molt)

... Being there I started sewing by hand, one next to the other, leaves I picked from a vacant lot that was behind the house where I was living. The reality of that country, its history, its exuberance and its ruined churches pierced my intimate pictorial work to silence.

Once back to Buenos Aires I was immersed in a process of fall, in the biblical sense, though in a very small, homeopathic dose and I continued exploring thatmatter while trying to process what I had experienced.

The work became then, or more than ever, a way of inhabiting time,of seeking a silent acceptance but at the same time expectant to the inability to say or understand certain issues that amaze me. A prayer that begs for some kind of transformation.

Cruz Imaginal( Imaginal cross )

Cruz Imaginal was an exhibition held at the Galería Daniel Abate from March to June 2008.It consisted of an installation of four pieces: Nido de hornero para humanos, Hombre con rama en el cuello, Andrógino and Carta a M, as well as …. texts concerning each piece. With Nido de hornero para humanos, I intended to build a nest by imitating the construction methods of the hornero, Argentina’s national bird. However, after three months of work, it was clear that the mud would not dry without direct sunlight and so could not be �nished. To build it the artist had enlisted the help of builder Julio Edgardo Alfonzo who, at the end of the process, and realising that it would not be �nished, decided to change the course of his life and return to the town of his childhood. The oil painting Hombre con rama en el cuello on wooden blinds is the portrait of a man in a medical emergency programme. His story, written in pencil, travelled along the wall of the gallery like a trail of ants connecting the nest with the portrait that portrays the man swamped by vegetation, but lucid at this critical moment. Andrógino is a piece on the subject of breathing and the proximity between two people. Lastly, Carta a M was a reply to a collector who was hoping to buy the work before it was actually made, but on the condition that it should be transportable. Copies of the letter were o�ered to all visitors to the exhibition.

M:

I won’t be able to make the nest transportable. I thought of a few ways to do it, but it was not gratifying (though making an art-work does not always have to be gratifying anyways). The point is that I could not help wondering, "Is it not the bird that flies away, and not its nest? ".

And yes, it is. The bird flies away, the nest awaits for its return.

The issue is that making it transportable involves practically making an apparent hornero nest and what I want to make is a hornero nest, for humans but real.

On the other hand, I could not help but wonder

Why should the work have to travel? Sure, now everything travels. But should I have to adapt this work to a situation that is almost completely alien to it? Yes, I know: today works travel, sell, they are shown here and there. But aren’t these secondary factors?

Not that I find your suggestion unusual, but it would certainly change the nature of this work.

Nature of the work. What thing or part of a work is its nature?

The work appears after long searching or when we are no longer searching, or it just falls suddenly like fruit from a tree. The work is seen the way we see the first drop announcing the rain.

It may happen sometime to confuse water falling from a balcony with water falling from the sky; it’s these things about living in the city. But rain is rain and the water from a balcony does not taste the same.

Yesterday, after the storm, Tomás said, "In these days after the rain falls everything looks more defined, each leaf is what it is. Each thing has its importance." And it is so true.

That which is seen can be modified, it may take another form, and even agents completely foreign to the work may be the ones to make it take a different turn ... The important thing is that in this being transformed the work does not lose temperature, its temperature. A temperature that all the things of this world have when they are true, when they are made with love, when they are what they’re meant to be.

When the work has that temperature it mysteriously starts breathing. Yes! The work breathes, as all living things breathe.

I'm sure you'll understand. The nest cannot be anything but solid, heavy mud. It is also important to work step by step, as the hornero would. Thus the nest is made of adobe, it is not transportable. And perhaps the only way to move it is by breaking it.

The nest does not travel, but can be done over and over again anywhere in the world.

Every rainy season the hornero makes a nest. Once its chicks grow, it leaves it and builds a new nest to shelter future offspring.

Other birds inhabit the old nest: sparrows, buzzards, parrots.

Sometimes the hornero leaves the nest half done; that happens when it realizes that it misdirected it. So no matter how hard it worked, it leaves it, it deserts it just like that.

There is a saying that goes: "lightning does not fall on a house with a hornero’s nest”. Apparently it’s good omen if the hornero makes its nest on the roof of a house or nearby, because it’s a sign that the land will provide abundant fruits.

So how could I make of a nest like this a mere imitation?

Letter in response to a collector who would purchase the art work as long as the nest was transportable. The letter was given to those who visited the exhibition.

Selection of pantings

Muda (Mute/Molt). Acrilic,pencil and embroidery on cotton fabric, 240x245cm. 2009-2011.

Santa Ana. Mixed media on plasterboard, 260x279cm. 2009-2011.

Calendario. (Summer version) Mixed media on plasterboard, 240x210 cm. 2011

This piece works as a calendar that reminds of the solstice. That is why it has two versions: from December 21 to June 21 it only carries rubber plant leaves. On the 21 st of June a coat of avocado leaves is placed on the work, wich remains there until December 21 st, and so on.......

18.1.98.18.11.08. Mixed media on plasterboard. 273 x 265 cm. 2009

Ranas cayendo del cielo. Mixed media on plasterboard 120 x 260 cm. 2004

Angel. Mixed media on wood, 150 x 220 cm. 2004-2009.

Patio o pintura para piso y plantas(Courtyard or �oor painting and plants)

Patio o Pintura para piso y plantas / Courtyard or �oor painting and plants.

The set up for this Art Exhibition: "Fourth Arte-Ba - Reward 2007 " , consisted in a room / court, specially build for the ocation - The wood �oor was painted with oils, plants and banana trees emerged - Spectators could walk in, and even stay for a while inside the paint. This Exhibition won the Reward.

May the paintings grow among the grass, as it sprouts from a hand, as a �ower blossoms. May the drawing brake and regenerate when it grows a root or a hen´s egg...to see how an embroidered pack of hounds climb on banana tree leaves. May painting be another fruit on a pomegranate tree!

Convertidas en perlas tus lágrimas brotan del mar (Turned into pearls your tears emerge from the sea)

Convertidas en perlas tus lágrimas brotan del mar.These piece was part of Convertidas en perlas tus lágrimas brotan del mar. The �rst individual exhibition held at Galería Alberto Sendrós in 2004. The exhibition occupied two rooms, one of which contained a series of portraits, paintings on plaster and wood, embroideries, plants and a small installation of dry trees. Embroidered fabrics concealed the ceiling and the �oor was covered in pieces of plaster rubble on which painted images of art history converged with others re�ecting the day-to-day life of the artist amidst banana peel, biscuits, manda-rins and a pillow on which a recipient containing water rested like a fountain awaiting coins. Some days after the inauguration certain pieces of plaster rubble disappeared from the installation. Due to a disagreement with the gallery owner, the artist decided to suspend the exhibition and brought it to a close by selling the rubble by weight at a greengrocer’s on the street corner near her studio.

Catalina León was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1981. She startsher artistic training in 1998 attending various workshops and, after moving simultaneously among other studies, in2001 decides to devote her self mainly to visual arts. Around those years she studies with artist Mariana López, whom she considers essential to her training, and between 2003 and 2005 participates of the Kuitca Scholarship Programme / Rojas UBA. Her �rst solo exhibition, Convertidas en perlas tus lágrimas brotan del mar, took place at Alberto Sendrós Art Gallery, Buenos Aires, in 2004. Followed by Cruz Imaginal, Daniel Abate Art Gallery, Buenos Aires, 2008, after winning in 2007 First Prize of the arteBA / Petrobrás Award with her work Patio ó pintura para piso y plantas; and Muda, Alberto Sendrós Art Gallery, Buenos Aires, 2011. Since 2005 her works partici-pate in numerous group exhibitions, such as J'enRêve, Fondation Cartierpourl’ArtContemporain, Paris, 2005; Rendez-Vous 2008, Museéd’ArtContemporain, Lyon, 2008; ¿Por qué pintura? Fondo Nacional de las Artes, Buenos Aires, 2009; Escuelismo,90’s Argentine Art, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires-Fundación Costantini, 2009;Mientras sea posible, Casa de America, Madrid, 2010;PintorAs, Museum of Contemporary Art of Rosario MACRO, Museum of Contemporary Art Saltaand Museum Cara�a, Córdoba, 2010; Palmario, D21 Art Gallery, Santiago de Chile, 2011; Arte Argentino Actual en la colección del Malba. Works 1989-2010, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires-Fundación Costantini, Buenos Aires, 2011; Latest TrendsII, Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art, 2012; Braque Award, Tres de Febrero National University, Provinceof Buenos Aires, 2013.In 2010 she co-created Vergel, a project that interweaves art, health and education. As coordinator and teacher of the program she conductsits’ activities from the palliative care section at Dr. Ricardo GutierrezChildren's Hospital, Buenos Aires. Between 2015 and 2017 she will be the �rst artist resident at Prisma KH, Buenos Aires.

Currently she is working on her next solo exhibition El sacri�cio Inútil at MAMBA (March 2015) and the edition of a book on her work. She will also participate of the upcoming group exhibitions The school of nature and principle (April 2015), at EFA Project Space, New York and My Buenos Aires (September 2015) at La Mason Rouge-Fondation Antoine de Galbert, Paris.