Love, memories and integrity of a ‘Nona’, in an exhibition by Fernando Insúa

Probably the vast majority of people agree that grandparents are eternal, although some of them have left the earthly plane, they remain forever in the minds and hearts of those who enjoyed their love. The plastic artist and cultural manager Fernando Insua It is one of those grandchildren who remembers with admiration the figure of those who usually act as the second parents that gives life; his grandmother the writer and activist Mireya Romero Plaza (1929-2014) is the absolute inspiration for his exhibition “Nona”, which opens this Tuesday at the Guayaquil Tennis Club.

This is the first individual exhibition that the artist has held after three years, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In it he brings together 17 works: 14 paintings and 3 installations that pay homage to his grandmother.

Each of the works reflects the courage, firmness and free writing of Romero’s novels and poems; all this with the characteristic style of Insúa: color, symbolism, shapes. “The painting has to say something, it has to have a language and with a certain code to be able to transmit some novel, some part of my grandmother’s identity, or some literary character that has characterized my grandmother. That is why there are characters in the paintings that are taken from the books that she wrote”, the artist explains to this newspaper.

This is how in some of his paintings a cat is distinguished, in reference to a poem that Rivera wrote; or some musicians, in another of her paintings, reminiscent of the tangos she used to listen to. “There is a band of musicians who play just a song that she used to sing when she was older: The blonde Mireya”, recalls Insua.

Other paintings go through several of the moments that marked his life, such as his anecdotes on the Ecuadorian coast and Santiago de Chile, or the way he faced cancer before he died in July 2014.

Insúa describes his grandmother as an exceptional woman. “He gave us an example of strong character, of standing firm until the end, of pride, of love of knowledge, of love of letters, of never letting oneself down”, express.

Account that the sample “It arises from preventing the beings we love from being forgotten.”

The inauguration of “Ninth” It will be at 19:30 this Tuesday, in the Guayaquil Tennis Club, located on Avenida 9 de Octubre and Lizardo García, center headquarters. It will remain in this space until April 3.

Then, from April 5 to 17, it will be exhibited in the Samborondón annex, at km 4.5 on the road to Samborondón. (I)