Every work of art demands from us thought, imagination, affection, challenging the viewer with different levels of demands.
Fabrics printed by ink, nervous connections, shadows of intertwined branches, all of them that seek union, friction. Or are they dancers, who in their silly dance caress their fingertips? Scenes full of poetry that treat connections as a magical process.
Elements that are close to them, the domestic sphere as a center of creation. Mechanics transmitted from mothers to daughters as a handicraft transformed into art. Through discarded objects, Barbara Long recreates a personal universe in which the family environment occupies a central space. Motherhood and her relationship with her mother are fundamental in the construction of her cocoons. An obvious parallel between the creator and the mother. The mother-daughter relationship source of transmission of wisdom.
Barbara dignifies the private space by transforming it into a space of creation and each one of the ordinary elements of it, the waste is elevated as ‘alchemy’ to precious materials.
Some fabrics crossed by black ink are the seed of this exhibition. Spontaneously, shapes emerge that are aesthetically impeccable. They coexist with the images of ‘Mother Material’; a performative journey through the creative process of Long’s sculptures and installations. The filigrees of her canvases take shape, escape from the frame and invade the space, resulting in an atmospheric experience.
Barbara’s artistic practice draws on different ‘-ism’, from minimalism and conceptualism to, of course, arte povera. Waste materials, discards that she endows with a second life. She has an undeniable weakness towards malleable, kind materials. Insignificant materials with a great transforming capacity. She contrasts the elements of the domestic environment, ephemeral and delicate with other more rigid and durable industrial materials.
Each element, in addition to her presence, contributes its own history, its evocative capacity. Something that also happens in her collages ‘Stitched Landscapes ‘and in ‘Rehechos’. Each small canvas contributes its plastic presence and its suggestive essence. Eden of the subconscious.
Curatorial Statement by Virtus del Hoyo.