Teresa Duclós. Fragments of Worlds

Dates: March 18 - August 29, 2021
Curator: Juan Antonio Álvarez Reyes
Coordinator: Alberto Figueroa
Space: East Cloister 1

Teresa Duclós creates pictures with everyday objects, ordinary places and natural settings that can be lived in, inhabited. Aside from their painstaking formal execution and undeniable visual appeal, the value of her still lifes, windows, gardens and landscapes resides in the fact that these pictures offer glimpses of possible worlds, because they prompt the spectators' memory and imagination to retrieve, revisit and even reconstruct familiar yet forgotten aspects of their own existence.

This is entirely owing to the power of images. The human gaze is not a camera that unconsciously records everything it comes across. Steeped in emotion and trained in words, memories and gestures, the eye searches and explores, but above all it finds. It may occasionally stumble across new things, but it is also frequently surprised by sights that were once known but have been forgotten, mislaid or lost in memory. The weight of vases, cups and bowls (reminiscent of Zurbarán) offers glimpses of the stability of ordinary interiors; the firm lines of a still life or a garden stir memories of inhabited spaces; and while the creeper seems to be pierced by a lingering gaze, the landscape (trees, paths) brings back the closeness of safe yet distant ground.

Teresa Duclós (Seville, 1934) belongs to that generation of young artists who, in 1950s Seville, sought an art that differed from the routine forms imposed in the post-war years. Duclós had her first solo shows in 1962 at Club la Rábida and Galería Céspedes, Córdoba, then one of the most reputable galleries in the country. She participated in the exhibition Diez pintores sevillanos y el escultor Nicomedes, a wake-up call that alerted the city to the existence of a different type of art. Soon afterwards, she teamed up with Carmen Laffón, Enrique Roldán and Pepe Soto to launch Galería La Pasarela, where she exhibited in 1967. In 1972 she was one of the nine painters Juana de Aizpuru selected for her show Nueve pintores sevillanos, which after opening in Seville travelled to Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona. After teaching at a secondary school for some years, in 1982 Duclós joined Galería Biosca and stayed on until the gallery closed in 1996. She later exhibited her work at the Leandro Navarro and Rafael Ortiz galleries in Madrid and Seville, respectively. However, these dry facts are merely the outward trappings of a life that can best be defined as a sustained, silent dialogue with painting.

 

 

ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTATION

[Cataloqgue]

[Leaflet]

[Press Dossier (In Spanish)]

[Photo Album on Flickr]