CAPSULES AND METAPHORS: MATTER AS CONTAINMENT AND EMANCIPATION

Over the course of her two-month residency at LAGOS, Mexico City, Chica Ayala has developed a body of work in which material is not merely a constructive support, but a trigger of awareness: a regulating principle and the main vehicle for the manifestation and containment of emotions. Using resin as an encapsulating agent, capable of fixing both joy and states of neurosis and frustration, the artist moves through a process of affective introspection and political review.

During the first period of the residency, Ayala focused her practice on deepening these emotional dimensions in order to analyze them, give them a channel, and carry them into a pictorial dimension. In this exercise, resin takes on a double function: it is recognized as a physical form of containment and, at the same time, as a metaphor for the encapsulation of the social oppressions that weigh on the subject. The pieces operate through an aesthetic of tactile seduction and sugary optics, displaying a toxic opulence and a dissonant allure. Through this artifice, the surface presents itself with the glossy, smooth visual appeal of crystalline candy, seeking openness and vulnerability toward the transformation of hegemonic mandates, by means of gentle forms and colors that positively contain the negative charges of conflict.

Moving forward with affective understanding and digestion, in the second month of the residency Chica turned her gaze toward the expansive capacity of color, shine, opacity, and the technical possibilities of resin as a discipline within the pictorial dimension. As a result of this process, the artist presents a set of 12 pieces that transcend the traditional limits of the frame and of two-dimensionality. This volumetric and material overflow functions as an exercise in recognizing expressive freedom, consolidating itself as a visual metaphor; each piece acknowledges in its title the sense of emancipation from the feminine construct imposed by the mandates of social structure.

olgaMargarita dávila

Chief Curator

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