Maria Magdalena Z’Graggen


>>KAP Beitrag

It is revealing to verify turning points in the work of an artist. In this exhibition by Maria Magdalena Z´Graggen we attend to the assimilation process of an entirely foreign reality; her relationship with an environment that is “swallowed”, synthesized and returned like a mathematical formula.  What is captured is generated by the collision of several elements. Some connect us to references of our urban landscape, while others allude to microscopic or almost invisible entities and to cryptic images that produce multiple sensations.

Living in Cuba for six months while away from her studio in quiet Basel, within a habitat whose dynamic surprised her, mediated the adventure of exploring in different ways the representation of unusual realities, never relating to the commonplace stereotypes of what is considered the Cuban. We experiment also before this group of work, her anguish for apprehending and representing, in a precise dimension, the plural surroundings with which she dialogues.

These premises encouraged the use of mountings and techniques that express the contingency of her relationship with the context. Maria Magdalena works regularly with oil paintings done on wood and her formal searches have been abstractionist.  As a part of her creative process she normally devotes a lot of time to the preparation of her paintings. However her stay in Cuba obliged her to inquire more so into her own expressive capacities. Through the use of paper, water color, collage and drawing, what becomes established is a pondered illusion to the figurative without abandoning the limits of the abstract.

The juxtaposition of these languages reveals, in a subtle way, fragments of the tireless reality that surrounds us.  

Resulta revelador verificar puntos de giro en la obra de un artista. En esta exposición de Magdalena Z’Graggen asistimos al proceso de asimilación de una realidad totalmente extraña, a su relación con un entorno que es “deglutido”, sintetizado y  devuelto como una fórmula matemática. Lo que captamos es generado por la colisión de elementos diversos que nos conectan con referentes de nuestra visualidad urbana, mientras otros aluden a entes microscópicos o casi invisibles y a imágenes crípticas que generan múltiples sensaciones.    

Vivir en Cuba durante seis meses alejada de su estudio en la tranquila Basilea, en un hábitat cuya dinámica le sorprende, propició la aventura de explorar de diferentes modos la representación de realidades insólitas, nunca referidas a los estereotipos de lo cubano. Experimentamos, también, ante el conjunto de trabajos, su angustia por aprehender y representar, en una dimensión justa, el medio plural con el que dialoga.

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