Programming

Sub-event of

ESTELA LÓPEZ SOLÍS

14 October — 12 November 2019

Exchange project aiming to foster exhibits, production and dialogues between artists and cultural workers from Cuba and Montreal.

The textile works that Estela is showing at Artista x Artista are the culmination of a process that has started during her evolutive performance Hantises (Asechantes), which was presented as part of her exhbit Susurrantes (Centre culturel de Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Montréal, 2017).  During this performance, whilst she was embroidering by hand with white thread on second-hand domestic objects made of fabric, the artist engaged in conversations with the public on fears and anguish that can arise at work, derived from the imperatives of productivity. The embroideries were sentences that visitors had voiced already, naming and expressing emotions they had felt. These words were generously and genuinely offered to Estela López by the people who talked with her, making it the primary media for future works. Thus, the assembled textual material gave way to many works in series, among which the embroideries presented here. Interested in combining her textile work with architectural spaces and the furniture that inhabits these spaces, López contributes to the exhibit with a series of installations and a intervention on a wall.

Acechantes in an exhibit held as part of Contemporary Art Encounters - Rencontres d'art actuel Montréal ~ Habana, thanks to a fruitful partnership between Artista x Artista and DARE-DARE.

Estela López Solís was born in 1978 in Mexico, where she studied visual arts. She currently lives and works in the Eastern Townships region of Quebec. Estela weaves links into her work that become unsuspected connections, borrowing images and words from heterogeneous sources. From the beginning of her career, she is interested in the formal, expressive and meaningful possibilities she brings to the exploration of various disciplines, including drawing, photography, illustration, video, textile art and performance. It seeks to give a visual form to the intimate and secret life of beings, things and places. Her artistic research focuses on the unveiling of the escaping appearances that connect us deeply to others.

Various cultural institutions in Canada, France and Mexico have supported her work. Her drawings interact with poetic texts in various publications, notably in the collection Pierre Blanche - Poèmes d'Alice by Stéphanie Bolster (Le Noroît, Montreal, 2007) and in the novel Wigrum by Daniel Canty (La Peuplade, Saguenay, 2011 and Talonbooks, Vancouver, 2013). Her works have been shown in Mexico, Quebec, France and the United States. They are part of various public and private collections.

Estela López Solís thanks the Canada Art Council for its support.