Manuela Gonzalez
mtn space gallery is pleased to present The Aesthetics of Care, a solo exhibition of textile paintings by Manuela Gonzalez. Stemming from the multi-faceted tradition of textiles, Gonzalez’s work situates the medium in dialogue with conventions of abstraction while paying homage to its roots in domesticity and care.
Gonzalez, originally from Colombia, grew up in a household and culture where women were responsible for the meticulous curation of the domestic landscape. Materials used to create this oft-unexamined visual language — wallpaper, linens, curtains, bedding, and other fabrics — serve as the basis for Gonzalez’s oeuvre, bringing textiles to the forefront and honoring them beyond their assigned function as backdrops to everyday life.
An avid researcher of fashion and interior design, in addition to textile history, Gonzalez also addresses the importance of these traditionally feminine subjects’ influence on western art history and the development of painting, both stylistic and material. The erasure of this influence stands in contrast to the celebration of white, mostly male artists credited with the invention of abstraction, though Gonzalez doesn’t seek to exalt one over the other — instead, her work highlights their connection and invites viewers to, “examine the present and historical conditions necessary for the existence of these objects and traditions.”
This connection is formally referenced: “Through my work the patches of fabric — the small floral patterns and color combinations found in wallpaper, in kitchen tiles, in my brother’s shirts — are in dialogue with Agnes Martin’s grid, with Jack Whitten’s texture and light, with Howardena Pindell’s touch, Carmen Herrera’s geometries, with Mary Heilmann’s drips, with Alan Shields' materiality, with a history of painting deeply rooted in emotionally detached, conceptual thinking.”
“Just like Jack Whitten describes his work as a vessel for emotion, for spirit, my work is a vessel for the spirit of care, of my childhood, of the generations of women who developed the technologies necessary not just for fabric, but for painting to exist in the service of nurturing and supporting their loved ones.”
Manuela Gonzalez (b. 1983) is a Lake Worth Beach-based artist from Medellín, Colombia. She holds a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from Yale University. Her work has been exhibited in Estamos Bien - La Trienal 20/21 at El Museo del Barrio and Cooper Union Gallery, New York, NY, and has been featured in The Brooklyn Rail (January 2021) and New American Painting (May 2020), among many others. She recently completed residencies with New Wave, West Palm Beach, FL and Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT.
The Aesthetics of Care will open on Friday, January 5th, from 5:30-8pm and will be on view through February 11th, 2024.