• text
  • pictures
  • Elena del Rivero
Guadalajara, México
MOTHER
1 Dec 2017 - 25 Dec 2017
Installation view
Close-up installation view
For Louis Khan

2017. Acrylic on canvas with stitched handle. 500.38 x 219.09 cm.

General installation view
Detail view For Louis Khan

2017. Acrylic on canvas with stitched handle. 500.38 x 212.09 cm.

Letter from Home, red 1

2001-2015. Typewritten text, gouache, and thread on paper. 105.5 x 73 cm

Copy

2009. Ink and graphite on copy paper. 27.94 x 43.18 cm.

General installation view
Domestic landscape with turmeric #15 #14 #13 #12 #11

2017. Gouache, thread, turmeric on vintage grapher paper. 23.5 x 30 cm.

General installation view
Letter to the Mother

2017. Digital impression in silk. 240 x 99 cm

Detail view of 'Letter to the Mother'

2017. Digital impression in silk. 240 x 99 cm

Mira una Carta Voladora!

2017. Silver gelatin, flee market frame, feather, thread, needle and found letter(1959). Variable dimensions.

Detail view of 'Mira una carta voladora!'

2017. Silver gelatin, flee market frame, feather, thread, needle and found letter (1959). Variable dimensions

Installation view
Letter from Home 9

2016. Acrylic on soiled, primed linen with stitched canvas loop and a needle. 99 x 74 cm.

Installation view
For Barragán, #1

2017. Oil on Belgian linen with turmeric, and fiberglass handle cover with ceramic. 162.5 x 112 cm

For Barragán, #2

2017
Oil on un-stretched canvas with Turmeric, and brass rode and stitched canvas loop
175 x 152 cm

General installation view
Installation view
Detail view of 'Letter to the Mother'
Handkerchief, #1

2017. Fiber reactive dyes on cotton. 43 x 43 cm.

Installation view
LTTM-06

2015. Oil on canvas, thread and fabric. 33.5 x 35.5 cm.

Wound 40

2009. Thread, collage, needle, ink and feather on Kozo Gampy Torinokoshi paper. 91.5 x 64 cm.

Wound 40

2009. Thread, collage, needle, ink, and feather on Kozo Gampi Torinokoshi peper. 91.5 x 64 cm

Two Dreaming

2017. Ink, collage and thread on abaca. 25.4 x 20.32 cm

– Turmeric
– oil
– acrylic
– 12th century Heloise
– feathers
– canvas
– paper
– dish towels
– Louis Kahn
– found letter from 1959
– thread
– pearls
– Barragán
– Picasso
– flea market frame
– silver gelatin
– needles

Travesia Cuatro is delighted to present Elena del Rivero’s (Valencia, Spain 1949) first exhibition with the gallery in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Elena del Rivero’s works in this exhibition incorporate the above ingredients into a recipe of Mother. Through this collection of work del Rivero acknowledges Mother, not as an individual but as an encompassing force, present even in absence. Mother is the common denominator shared by all. The works are composed of traditional art materials, combined with items found in the home. These elements are utilized to weave together a narrative of exchange between the feminine domestic sphere and the canon of history.

Elena del Rivero has built her own language in order to approach the symbolic distances between the realms of the public and the private. Her letters deepen into the internal codes of intimacy, bringing together the studio as a space devoted to creation and the home as a grid of vital disposition.

The recurring figure of the dishcloth is used by the artist as an ambiguous and receptive surface which remains in constant transformation. Sometimes the dishcloth is presented as a flag, entailing the possibility of collective identification; it also functions as a codified letter, avoiding interpretation and establishing privacy as a poetic dimension.

The usage of language within Elena del Rivero’s work transforms enunciation into conjuring through repetition, which implies force and embodiment. This practice is complimented by a poetic understanding of the materials she uses that perform as an archive of experience. Furthermore, spices such as turmeric are imbedded into the body of the paint. The series titled “Domestic Landscapes” are an example of these dynamics.

Del Rivero undertakes a historic domestication, creating a series of homages that reference iconic figures of art history, artists such as Luis Barragán, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, among others, are introduced into a circle of familiarity through domestic symbols and the act of mending.

Paradoxically Elena del Rivero distances herself from the modernist canon and highlights the contributions of woman scholars such as Heloïse, Hildegard of Bingen, Marina Tsvetáyeva, and Teresa de Jesús, weaving signs and references of the feminine into a web of collaboration to find a common place in memory and experience.

For Louis Khan

2017. Acrylic on canvas with stitched handle. 500.38 x 219.09 cm.

Detail view For Louis Khan

2017. Acrylic on canvas with stitched handle. 500.38 x 212.09 cm.

Letter from Home, red 1

2001-2015. Typewritten text, gouache, and thread on paper. 105.5 x 73 cm

Copy

2009. Ink and graphite on copy paper. 27.94 x 43.18 cm.

Wound 40

2009. Thread, collage, needle, ink, and feather on Kozo Gampi Torinokoshi peper. 91.5 x 64 cm

Two Dreaming

2017. Ink, collage and thread on abaca. 25.4 x 20.32 cm

Letter from Home 9

2016. Acrylic on soiled, primed linen with stitched canvas loop and a needle. 99 x 74 cm.

For Barragán, #1

2017. Oil on Belgian linen with turmeric, and fiberglass handle cover with ceramic. 162.5 x 112 cm

General installation view
Letter to the Mother

2017. Digital impression in silk. 240 x 99 cm.

Mira una Carta Voladora!

2017. Silver gelatin, flee market frame, feather, thread, needle and found letter(1959). Variable dimensions.

Detail view of 'Mira una carta voladora!'

2017. Silver gelatin, flee market frame, feather, thread, needle and found letter (1959). Variable dimensions