Having lived half her life in Italy, she inspires the new exhibition of Ecuadorian artist Francesca Palma, 26, entitled Not all rocks are mountains, which can now be visited until mid-December at Galería Nasal, in Puerto Santa Ana. The artist grew up and lived in Genoa between 1998 and 2012.

This is also the last exhibition of the cultural project that Mauricio Aguirre founded in that space, although he hopes to reopen it soon in a new part of the city.

Giada Lusardi, curator of the Palma exhibition, previews details of the work highlighting the artist’s chosen motifs characterized by her experiences between continents, between cultures and between landscapes.

‘Lion’s Tear’ (acrylic on canvas, 238 x 130 cm).

“His works emerge from a deeply introspective work, like that of the migrant, who, in contact with the other, returns to the existential question: who am I?” Lusardi explains. “His artistic production considers languages ​​as tools for understanding and communication. The painted image of an angel in high relief expresses a kind of ambiguity, in this case gender, that allows for the viewer’s involvement.”

‘The Shining’ (oil on canvas, 120 x 120 cm).

By giving her works an English title, Palma looks for a language that, since it is neither Italian nor Spanish, becomes more impersonal and functional, making her feel like another citizen of a globalized world.

“In his work the human being is there at the same time and not at the same time. There is his gaze, his gesture, his perception of landscapes, of natural elements, of light phenomena, or his spirituality embodied by the sculptures of Italian churches (…). The artist is interested in the roughness and chiaroscuro effects that reveal the three-dimensionality of her rocks, pointed and full of textures. These reliefs become protagonists in her pictorial work and activate the perception of the expectations, various beings that Palma imagines as human and non-human,” continues the curator.

‘Deeply real’ (mixed on canvas, 87 x 62 cm x 1 cm).

In July last year, Francesca took third place in the 61st edition of the July Salon and is currently completing the Via Farini residency program in Milan, Italy.

In 2015 He graduated from the Juan José Plaza Institute of Fine Arts (Guayaquil) with a mention in painting and was part of several group exhibitions as Mouth 9 (2020), Open Studio Violent (2020) and Before yesterday (2020).

Palma exhibited its first individual exhibition in 2021 titled Around the north, from the series Visual perception is limited (…), in TM (gallery).