‘Mar de amores’ exhibits the coastal nostalgia of the artist Patricia León at the Presley Norton museum

The artist Patricia León opens this Thursday, at 5:00 p.m., the exhibition ‘Sea of ​​Loves: Salango – Valdivia’, Inspired by the relationship that the author has had for decades with the ancestral cultures of the coast. “It is the reinterpretation of my first contact with places where I have had to work or live,” he says, recalling that 40 years ago he was linked to the archeology and archeobotany of that coastal area of ​​the current provinces of Manabí and Santa Elena.

“When she was about 20 years old, she always worked in the peninsula, in social research”, specifically in the gathering of information for the fishing sector, which had led her to live near the sea, in Ancón, from where she traveled to the various populations of the area. The exhibition exhibits the images that are kept in his memory as a tribute to the marine wealth that he observed in those years, including in the depths that he met through scuba dives.

“At that time I was diving because I was interested in knowing what was under the sea, observe the behavior of animals, algae. At that time, people fished the spondylus shell a lot for commercial purposes, for jewelry ”, he points out about this mollusk that appears repeatedly on his canvases, even large ones, in an abundance that has disappeared due to the overexploitation of this species.

The “Sea of ​​loves” that she remembers is reborn through her artistic production as a call to attention to a current situation that exhibits conflicts in the field of environmental conservation, but also in the socio-cultural sphere, because she considers that the coastal areas have not achieved greater development in all these years.

For this reason, he usually returns to Salango and other coastal towns to observe what is done for the benefit of nature, the conservation of archaeological wealth and the inhabitants. “People are still artisans, but no one exalts their crafts, their knowledge, their knowledge …”.

However, Patricia also highlights positive points, such as the appearance of new coral banks and the protection of certain areas. “These are good situations that we should also comment on”, above all because current generations are surely unaware of the historical importance of this coastal territory as the home of ancestral cultures.

And now is the right time to highlight it in society, in his case through art, since the country is reactivated little by little, rescuing everything that should have a new value from now on, in a country and a society that they are rising after more than a year and a half of pandemic.

Curatorship

The artist Hernán Zúñiga Albán is the curator of this sample of 40 works in various formats, painted on canvas and others on paper. “Forceful the exercise of visual anthropology that Patricia León Guerrero exercises in her artistic discourse. Hiker through the ancestral paths, meeting the trades that survive with beings of mud skin on the shore of the lean to the barradas, or on the beaches constellated with anthropozoomorphies “, indicates the expert.

“The abstract appearance of his vision in the pictorial works predisposes to figurative suggestions of a candid expressionism”, he says about this exhibition which, he adds, is “oral tradition represented in colored signage, color metaphors with ritual gestures. A diluted lyricism in fillings, to summon telluric meanings of knowledge ”.

The Museo Presley Norton, which is part of the network of museums of the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, is located in 9 de Octubre and Carchi. Hours: Monday to Friday from 09:00 to 17:00. It will open on holidays, except the weekend. Free admission. Reports: 229-3423.