Karla Solano is a member of a new generation of Costa Rican artists who have challenged a relatively conservative art scene in their own country, while coming of age with the arrival of digital media.
Virginia Pérez, Director of TEOR/éTica gallery (a not-for-profit gallery in the centre of San José known for its innovative programming) describes Solano’s work: “The territory in Karla Solano's work is the human body, particularly her own. For a long period she used x-rays as a means of metaphorically analysing the image of her self.” For the past decade the artist continually produces innovative and provocative works based on images of her own body.
Solano has exhibited large scale public works at the biennales in Sao Paulo, Havana and Shanghai, in which she wraps a building or a room with images of her own body. On a smaller scale, Karla Solano produces a series of photographs ingeniously combined with painting on canvas. “Beso”, featured above, is a seductive and playful image of her lips in the form of a kiss. The scale of the lips and the textures of the image, as well as the canvas, invite viewers to explore the abstracted shapes and contours. The tension between the media, the gestures and the colours create compositions that are challenging as well as beautiful.
In another group as part of her latest body of work, Solano explores photography in three dimensional formats. “Wraps”, what she calls the sculptural pieces, confront the viewer like an alien being. However, the familiarity of the skin tones and textures, with glimpses of gestural hands and her curly red hair suggest a kinship and warmth that ultimately invites the viewer to relate on a more familiar level.
Monte Azul is proud the show this artist’s truly innovative works at our sites in Costa Rica and New York. For further information, click here.
Twenty artists from Costa Rica, including Monte Azul’s Alvaro Gomez, Sebastian Mello, Ileana Moya and Jose Pablo Solis are invited to paint au pleine aire. Proceeds from the painting sales will go for the reconstruction of elementary schools destroyed or damaged by the December 2008 earthquake.
