Artist explores feminine condition

HCM CITY — A solo exhibition by contemporary Colombian artist Luz Angela Lizarazo has opened at San Art gallery in HCM City.

It is part of Irregular Hexagon: Colombian Art in Residence, an art project curated by Jose Roca (Adjunct Curator, Latin American Art, TATE Modern, London, UK) and co-produced by Fundacion Gilberto Alzate Avendano and the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Lizarazo makes drawings, objects and installations that "speak to the feminine condition, the fragility of life, vulnerability and the need for protection", a press release from the organiser says.

"The domestic realm appears as a recurring theme in her works, as do crafts traditionally associated with women like sewing or knitting; images such as flowers and birds; jewelry techniques like lost-wax casting; and delicate materials like porcelain, glass, gauze and human hair.

"But her images, paradoxically, are not ‘feminine' in the stereotyped sense of the term, revealing themselves as deeply disturbing and not complacent," the release says.

In her more recent works that are featured in Irregular Hexagon, Lizarazo creates drawings based on the intricate patterns of gratings used to protect windows and doors.

"These forms are blown up to architectural proportions with stencils and applied to walls, or used in windows to create interplays of light and shadow; sometimes collecting actual gratings and piecing them together into large sculptural objects," the release says.

Lizarazo was born in 1966, in Bogota Colombia where she currently lives and works. She is a PhD graduate in Fine Arts from Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France.

Irregular Hexagon will remain open at San Art, 3 Me Linh Street, Binh Thanh District, until August 16. — VNS