River Makers by Alicia Paz
25 September – 11 December 2021
River Makers is an exhibition by visual artist Alicia Paz at 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, from Saturday 25th of September to Saturday 11th of December 2021. This show is curated by Lassla Esquivel, founder of Periferia Projects, and has been generously supported by Arts Council England.
River Makers is a new exhibition by Alicia Paz, presenting paintings and installations, referencing water and the notions of fluidity and change, as positive forces in the formation of female identity. Combining influences from social history, with fiction and fantasy, she explores the metaphorical dimension and rich symbolism of the sea, and of estuaries and rivers, considering them as areas of movement, exchange, transition, and renewal. Images of eels and octopus tentacles are playfully combined to create intricate visual compositions. These are accompanied by an evolving series of paintings of historical female figures titled Juntas (Together). They are a kind of inspirational ‘family tree’, representing women thinkers, writers, artists, and also female swimmers, who have interested, moved or influenced Paz over the years. The title River Makers references the long history of water management and the legacy of historical European migration to areas such as the Fens, and the Isle of Axholme neighbouring the River Trent in North Lincolnshire - specifically the Dutch and French Huguenot colonies that were involved in the draining of the marshlands to create the landscape we know today.
About the artist
Alicia Paz is a multicultural visual artist, born and raised in Mexico, and based in London for several years. She studied at Goldsmiths College and Royal College of Art, in London. She has also lived and worked in France and in the USA, and her body of work has been shown internationally.
In her practice, Paz investigates identity and the notion of a dividedauthor, and explores the mutability of subjectivity through a diverse range of media such as paintings, collages and sculptures. The artist focuses on the female figure: the Self is experienced and presented as multiple, paradoxical, and in flux. Inhabiting fantastical landscapes, her feminine subjects become fused and combined with organic life. Her work at times incorporates visual elements taken from applied and decorative arts, such as ceramic delftware, using these registers as a vehicle for intertwining narratives. Other recent subjects include cultural hybridity and representations of family, exploring the complexities of kinship and lineage in a globalised world.
Alicia Paz has presented solo exhibitions in the UK, France, Germany, Mexico, and Argentina, and recently with Michael Szpakowski at the Museo Leonora Carrington in Mexico (2019). Her show at Kunstmuseum Magdeburg, Germany (2016) was accompanied by a bilingual monograph published by VfMK, Vienna. As a multicultural artist, Paz’s work was included in the group show Tous, des sang-mêlés, held at MACVAL, Vitry-sur-Seine, France (2017). Earlier solo projects include an exhibit at Dukan Gallery in Leipzig (2014), Mexican Cultural Institute in Paris (2013), Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London (2006) and Ruth Benzacar Gallery in Buenos Aires (2005).
Curator
Lassla Esquivel will act as guest curator, liaising with the 20-21 Visual Arts Centre and ESCALA (Collection of Latin American Art of the University of Essex, partners in this project). She is an Art historian, independent curator and researcher based in the UK. Her curatorial projects have been showcased in Latin America, Asia-Pacific regions, Europe and the UK. Founder of Periferia Projects, a curatorial platform creating connections between Latin America, the UK and Europe. Periferia’s focus is to develop projects with artists from emerging hubs to enhance their visibility and promote collaboration with new galleries, artists and institutions.
Venue: 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, Scunthorpe
Opening Times: Tues – Sat 10:00 - 16:00
ARTIST: Alicia Paz (Mexico, 1967)
DATES: 25 September to 11 December 2021
Alicia Paz, Series Juntas, 2021 (on-going work). Mixed media and oil on canvas.
1. Madame de Staël, 2019
Mixed media and oil on canvas
40.5 x 31 cm
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein, commonly known as Madame de Staël, was a French woman of letters and political theorist, the daughter of banker and French finance minister Jacques Necker. She was a voice of moderation in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era up to the French Restoration.
Born: 22 April 1766, Paris, France
Died: 14 July 1817, Paris, France
2. Diamond Pattern 4, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
41 x 31 cm
3. Gertrude Ederle, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
36 x 26 cm
Gertrude Caroline Ederle was an American competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and former world record-holder in five events. On August 6, 1926, she became the first woman to swim across the English Channel. Among other nicknames, the press sometimes called her "Queen of the Waves."
Born: 23 October 1905, Manhattan, New York, United States
Died: 30 November 2003, Wyckoff, New Jersey, United States
4. Harriet Taylor Mill, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
40.7 x 31 cm
Harriet Taylor Mill was a British philosopher and women's rights advocate. Her more significant philosophical work is “The Enfranchisement of Women”, published in The Westminster Review in 1851. She worked in such close collaboration with John Stuart Mill that it is exceedingly difficult to disentangle her contributions to the products of their joint effort from his. Her extant corpus of writing can be found in The Complete Works of Harriet Taylor Mill. Several pieces can also be found in The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, especially volume XXI.
Born: 8 October 1807, Walworth, London
Died: 3 November 1858, Avignon, France
5. Virginia Woolf, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
18 x 13 cm
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
Born: 25 January 1882, Kensington, London
Died: 28 March 1941, Lewes
6. Rosario Castellanos, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
30.7 x 25.5 cm
Rosario Castellanos Figueroa was a Mexican poet and author. She was one of Mexico's most important literary voices in the last century. Throughout her life, she wrote eloquently about issues of cultural and gender oppression, and her work has influenced Mexican feminist theory and cultural studies.
Born: 25 May 1925, Mexico City, Mexico
Died: 7 August 1974, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel
7. Abstract Diamond Pattern 1, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
30 x 23 cm
8. Anna Wheeler, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
25.7 x 20.5 cm
Anna Wheeler, also known by her maiden name of Anna Doyle, was an Irish born British writer and advocate of political rights for women and the benefits of contraception. She married Francis Massey Wheeler when she was "about 16" and he was "about 19", although the year is not known. They separated twelve years later.
Born: 1780, Tipperary, Ireland
Died: 1848, London
9. Ana Mendieta, 2019
Mixed media and oil on canvas
40.5 x 30.5 cm
Ana Mendieta was a Cuban-American performance artist, sculptor, painter and video artist who is best known for her "earth-body" artwork. Born in Havana, Mendieta left for the United States in 1961.
Born: 18 November 1948, Havana, Cuba
Died: 8 September 1985, Greenwich Village, New York, United States
10. Lucy Morton, 2021
Mixed media and oil on canvas
25 x 20 cm
Lucy Morton, later known by her married name Lucy Heaton, was an English competition swimmer who represented Great Britain at the 1924 Summer Olympics and won a gold medal in the 200-metre breaststroke event. Morton was born in 1898 at New Tatton in Cheshire, her father Alfred was in domestic service as a groom.
Born: 23 February 1898, Knutsford
Died: 26 August 1980, Blackpool
11. Mary Seacole, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
50.5 X 40.5 cm
Mary Jane Seacole was a British-Jamaican nurse, healer and businesswoman who set up the "British Hotel" behind the lines during the Crimean War.
Born: 23 November 1805, Kingston, Jamaica
Died: 14 May 1881, Paddington, London
12. Flowers - White Tiles, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
30.5 x 25.3 cm
13. Angela Grimké, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
33 x 22 cm
Angelina Emily Grimké Weld was an American abolitionist, political activist, women's rights advocate, and supporter of the women's suffrage movement. She and her sister Sarah Moore Grimké are the only white Southern women who became abolitionists.
Born: 20 February 1805, Charleston, South Carolina, United States
Died: 26 October 1879, Hyde Park, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
14. Anna Julia Cooper, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
25.5 x 20 cm
Anna Julia Haywood Cooper was an American author, educator, sociologist, speaker, Black liberation activist, and one of the most prominent African-American scholars in United States history.
Born: 10 August 1858, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
Died: 27 February 1964, Washington, D.C., United States
15. Mary Wollstonecraft, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
40.7 x 30 cm
Mary Wollstonecraft was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft's life, which encompassed several unconventional personal relationships at the time, received more attention than her writing.
Born: 27 April 1759, Spitalfields
Died: 10 September 1797, Somers Town, London
16, Louisa May Alcott, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
25 x 20 cm
Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet best known as the author of the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys.
Born: 29 November 1832, Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Died: 6 March 1888, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
17. Jane Austen, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
40.7 x 30.7 cm
Jane Austen was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security.
Born: 16 December 1775, Steventon
Died: 18 July 1817, Winchester
18. Abstract Diamond Pattern 1, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
30 x 23 cm
19. Flower Diagonal Pattern, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
36 x 26 cm
20. Simone de Beauvoir, 2019
Mixed media and oil on canvas
40.5 x 31 cm
Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir was a French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, she had a significant influence on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory.
Born: 9 January 1908, 6th arrondissement of Paris
Died: 14 April 1986, Paris, France
21. Gabrielle Suchon, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
50 x 40 cm
Gabrielle Suchon was a French moral philosopher who participated in debates about the social, political and religious condition of women in the early modern era. Her most prominent works are the Traité de la morale et de la politique and Du célibat volontaire.
Born: 24 December 1632, Semur-en-Auxois, France
Died: 5 March 1703, Dijon, France
22. Abstract Diamond Pattern 3, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
35 x 27 cm
23. Olympe de Gouges, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
30.3 x 30.3 cm
Olympe de Gouges was a French playwright and political activist whose writings on women's rights and abolitionism reached a large audience in various countries. She began her career as a playwright in the early 1780s. As political tension rose in France, Olympe de Gouges became increasingly politically engaged.
Born: 7 May 1748, Montauban, France
Died: 3 November 1793, Place de la Concorde, Paris, France
24. Diamond Pattern 5, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
30.5 x 25 cm
25. Hermila Galindo, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
33 x 24 cm
Hermila Galindo Acosta was a Mexican feminist and a writer. She was an early supporter of many radical feminist issues, primarily sex education in schools, women's suffrage, and divorce.
Born: 2 June 1886, Lerdo, Mexico
Died: 18 August 1954, Mexico City, Mexico
26. Rosa Luxemburg, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
25.3 x 25.3 cm
Rosa Luxemburg was a Polish Marxist economist, anti-war activist and revolutionary socialist. Successively, she was a member of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, the Social Democratic Party of Germany, the Independent Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party of Germany.
Born: 5 March 1871, Zamosc, Poland
Died: 15 January 1919, Berlin, Germany
27. Sonia Delaunay, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
25.3 x 20.3 cm
Sonia Delaunay was a French artist, who spent most of her working life in Paris. She formally trained in Russia and Germany before moving to France and expanding her practice to include textile, fashion, and set design.
Born: 13 November 1885, Hradyz'k, Ukraine
Died: 5 December 1979, Paris, France
28. Mary Shelley, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
25.5 x 20.5 cm
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Born: 30 August 1797, Somers Town, London
Died: 1 February 1851, Chester Square, London
29. Elisabeth of Bohemia, 2021
Mixed media on canvas
30.5 x 25.3 cm
Elisabeth of the Palatinate, also known as Elisabeth of Bohemia, Princess Elisabeth of the Palatinate, or Princess-Abbess of Herford Abbey, was the eldest daughter of Frederick V, Elector Palatine, and Elizabeth Stuart.
Born: 26 December 1618, Heidelberg, Germany
Died: 11 February 1680, Herford, Germany
30. Diamond Pattern (Flowers), 2021
Mixed media on canvas
35.3 x 30.3 cm
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CONTACT
Images on high resolution and a digital catalogue available are available on request to lassla@periferia-projects.com ***Studio Visits live or online upon request. Available dates in October and November 2021.