Yearn for the myth
Margarita Checa welcomes us in her department in Barranco, surrounded by the fourteen sculptures made of wood and bronze of her current exhibition “The Doors of Perception” at the Lucia de la Puente Gallery. Her art pieces – most of them including silhouettes of teenagers and
children with contorted faces – are filled with great expression for their stillness, and, paradoxically, because they are almost face-free. It is unbelievable how the artist manages to exploit wood and metal. The sculptures not only move by their beauty, but also by the mood that they express. “More than introspection it is melancholy, a glance into my inner-self”, explains the sculptor when we asked her about this side of her work.
It took this discipline of Cristina Galvez and Anna Maccagno, two years to finish her master pieces. Some of the sculptures of this exhibition have been shown at the Lowe Galleries in Atlanta and Santa Monica, and at the Latin-American Art Museum in California. “I have been faithful to the way I understand the world through the human form or the animals”, says the artist when asked why she chose the figure instead of abstractionism. “I think there is a surrealistic touch in my work; but above all, there is a magical realism, which is totally Latin-American”, she added.
In order to create, this artist cloisters herself in her workshop in Villa El Salvador, where she takes care of every single aspect of the production. “I work mostly with olive and mahogany woods. I found about 80 tons of olive and some pieces of mahogany. I cut them with the chain saw to reach a more refined stage. I also do the inlaid work with bullhorns and silver”.
“I yearn for the myth”, says the sculptor about the theme of her work, “something that remains in the unconscious memory of each and everyone of us”.
COSAS MAGAZINE
