ANALIA SABAN
LIVING COLOR
Paris
17 January – 07 March 2009
Analia Saban dissects the work of art meticulously; she disassembles what was carefully made to rewind the process of its creation. What remains is a relic which testifies a work, which at the same time disappears and presents itself as the beginning of a new development. She is interested in what physically constitutes the image to understand what makes the work able to exist. Thinking art works by stratum, lines and material density, she uses various strategies to disassemble the initial work and that way reveals a new form through its conception process.
For her second exhibition at the gallery, Analia Saban presents a new series that deals with the moment when Painting met Photography. There was a conflict: even though Photography was able to capture form better than Painting, Painting held the power of reproducing color. In terms of composition and subject matter, early photographs resemble the clichés of Painting: still lives, nudes, and portraits, among others. Using these clichés, she intends to comment on the fundamental picture-making elements such as form, color, texture, and ground. How does color work? How do these elements interact among themselves?
The six new work presented in the exhibition were inspired by early black and white photographs and than imagined in full color versions. The color was built by using translucent layers of primary colors in order to create a full-color spectrum. As in Painting, layers of yellow and red to produce orange, or layers of blue and yellow to produce green. The layering of color also references Printmaking. By making a hybrid between Painting, Photography, and Printmaking, Analia Saban is attempting to create a new form of picture making. The result is a three-dimensional looking image in which all the elements of a picture are broken apart by exposing them in different layers: translucent primary colors, brushstrokes, and canvas.
