María Berrío: Flowered Songs and Broken Currents
Victoria Miro gallery, London, UK
6 October – 18 December 2020
This is an art exhibition I saw at Victoria Miro Gallery, and it is still available to view on Vortic Collect until 18 December 2020. As I came in, the upper galleries were filled with light and colour radiating from the artworks created by María Berrío, a Colombian artist based in Brooklyn, NYC. Her works, made mostly with Japanese print paper, reflect on cross-cultural connections and global migration, seen through the prism of her own history.
Latin American folklore may come to mind when you see the brightness of these artworks, as well as an uneasy feeling provoked by the gaze and solitude of the women represented. In 2019, the artist began researching small fishing villages in Colombia — the country where she was born and raised — and became intrigued by their stories and the lives of their inhabitants. These stories inspired her to imagine her own fishing village in the language of magical realism, a style of fiction that paints a realistic view of the modern world while adding magical elements. Berrío created this series to explore the modes of resilience and adaptation that arise out of loss. They depict the women and children who are left behind.
A sense of loss can certainly be felt in these works, but also a sense of rebirth. For instance, one of my favourite pieces in the show is Clouded Infinity (2020), which depicts a woman about four months pregnant, sitting alone in a large classical armchair. On one side of the chair there is a plant and flowers on the window ledge — symbols of renewal. The sky outside is blue. Children are still being born; there is still hope for the human race. See photos of the artworks below.
Another work by Berrío, There Is No Sky for Ground Spirits (2020), initially felt a bit unsettling. “This nods to our attempts to categorise and frame events, to contain them in a way that enables us to understand them,” says the artist. The two birds in the piece represent the past and the present. “She grabs the present in her hand, but her past remains beside her, impossible to leave behind.”
My favourite artwork in the exhibition, however, contains no figure at all. It depicts only a tree: Miracles of Ordinary Light (2020). According to the artist: “The beauty and glory of nature is figure enough… By distancing ourselves mentally, technologically, and materially from nature, we not only fail to see nature’s wonder but also our own place in that wonder. We react in shock and horror to discover that we, too, are but one fragment of something far grander than our laughter and sadness. This tree, like all trees — as well as all birds, mountains, stars, and people — will live, die, and be reborn again.” I chose to engage with this work because I love trees; for me, they are symbols of life.
I appreciate the artist’s cyclical perception of the universe and the way she centres female strength. This show feels like a homage to Latin American women — to the endurance and resilience they demonstrate daily. It reflects how they are able to overcome political and sociological challenges such as migration, poverty, and loss, and continually reinvent themselves.
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