Solo exhibition by Magaly Arocha Rivas
Curated by Irene Fontana
Inaugurated on March 24th at the il punto gallery in Bologna, the personal exhibition of Magaly Arocha Rivas, a figurative painter of Venezuelan origin and resident in the city of Petroniana for several years now.
Nosotras. Ritratti di donna I talk about the thoughts, emotions and needs of women in today’s society, taking into account age, context of origin and all those characteristics which, although making women different from each other, unite them in a similar condition. Attentive to sociocultural mechanisms and gender disparities, Magaly Arocha Rivas transposes them, underlining the determination and, at the same time, the fragilities of women.
The exhibition is mostly made up of portraits, in oil and acrylic, but the self-portraits are the real starting point of this narrative: from here Nosotras, in Spanish it means us in the feminine form: a term that conveys the powerful sense of gender affirmation and which also constitutes a reminder of the fact that women are not the mirror of a stereotype, as we are sometimes led to believe.
Arocha Rivas recognizes himself personally in the statistics, but above all he does not remain indifferent to the gap that still persists between men and women, he denounces the violence and experiences through his daughters the problems that concern the new generations, in particular Generation Z, which gives the title to one of his most significant pictorial series.
Thoughts and perplexities emerge from the looks of these young women, intent on finding a place in the world, aware of the need for female solidarity, rather than a competition that obscures common objectives; very fragile women, but who are starting to love each other and at the same time dedicated to a useful and indispensable selfishness, in the hope of no longer being the object of others but the subject of their own life.
In the last part of the journey, two different figures coexist and converge on the same point of arrival: the dancer, vulnerable as she hides her face with a strong body with defined muscles, a perfect synthesis of fragility and determination as well as a metaphor for the contemporary woman, and Water, culmination work of the exhibition which represents the feminine par excellence, adaptable and receptive, like water that manages to circumvent the obstacles present along its path. This is whatNosotras. Ritratti di donna offers the viewer: denunciation, current events, but also faith in change.
Irene Fontana
Art Curator
Here you can find some images of the exhibition https://youtube.com/shorts/sHO4r8wXLgs?feature=share
