PM/AM Gallery
PM/AM Gallery, London, UK
In residence Summer 2023
“The weight of meaning rests upon a set of immediate factors that may involve context, relevance and myriad personal circumstances that link an observer with what it is that they are drawing meaning from. What is perhaps less potent in this cognitive whirl is the role played by scale, or resolution - the perceptive point of distance from which someone is able to analyse something. If we look upon a sunlit meadow from a sitting position on a blanket, we may see peace and tranquillity; there becomes a point however, where the scale at which the same environment can be observed may reveal the turmoil and violence present throughout the natural world.
The latest series of paintings from Miami based artist Alejandra Moros allows us to view symbols of the everyday at a scale that brings out their obscure elegance. She guides us into a semi-secretive space where the objects she paints are defiantly wonderful, transcending any preconceptions we may hold towards them. This is not however the only dimension to the work. As a counterbalance, her paintings also remind us of the corporeal world, the discomfort of seeing skin under tension, a woozy and not completely pleasant interaction of textures.
These conflicting ideas complexify what could be seen as technically astounding but deceptively straightforward paintings. Residing inside narrow hues and focusing on only one or two primary elements, the depths to which the work can be experienced are sunk into over time and with space for contemplation.
The notion of portraiture, for instance, is probed in examples that focus on fine details of the human body. At the scale Alejandra works at, we will never see a fully formed body, or face, but we may see the curve of an eyelid. If a portrait could be characterised by an inherent sense of intimacy and personal exchange between the artist and the subject, focusing on a specific detail, if anything, deepens the intimacy. It shares with us something ultimately more beguiling, more invasive even, but built on a more sophisticated sense of trust and intention.
Inverting the soothing intimacy and challenging closeness, opposing orders of magnitude occasionally crop up in Alejandra’s work. What has its roots in the interior of a shell may briefly resemble a womb or the inner ear, before the eye and mind find themselves staring at some kind of cosmic structure. This may well be the high point in the illusory magic of these paintings: the feeling that you can be a sizeable entity inspecting the minutiae of the mundane, then suddenly roles are reversed and you are a mere fragment, overwhelmed beneath the enormity of existence.
Despite the grandeur of these statements, what sits at the core of the work is resolutely humble. Colour, tone and the sensation of a flowing motion caught not by the artist but by the structures of the objects themselves, come together to create something ultimately serene. Whilst a consistency in technique bridges works together, each can be seen as its own rumination on scale, and the disorientating beauty that can be found when our perspective undergoes a profound shift.“
Written by Daniel Mackenzie
