GR gallery is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition of Tania Marmolejo Andersson with the gallery after a year of collaborations. Titled “Telenovela Life”, this show will present a new series with an specific focus on the artist’s characters facial expressions -able to loudly communicate excessive feelings and behavioral patterns, without needing of any explanation- and on the relations and dramas that thigh them together. This exhibition will introduce to the public fifteen medium and large size artworks on canvas and a limited edition digital print. The new body of work, exemplarily executed with the artist's signature technique, shows the exceptional capability of depicting emotions imbued with personal implications and contemporary social issues, pushing even further beyond the boundaries the references to the Expressionism and the Flemish Renaissance that have influenced Tania’s work.
Tania Marmolejo Andersson: Telenovela Life
“Telenovela Life”’s gimmick is clearly activated by the latin heritage of the artist. Starting from the traditional island culture, mixed with a unique kind of popular folklore, the exclusive environment and society that she’s been exposed to since childhood, Marmolejo’s artistic journey was often, directly and indirectly, influenced by the Telenovelas (soap opera), able to offer the chance of a bittersweet enhanced projection of the artist thoughts and feelings into the artworks. The exaggeratedly expressive eyes and facial appearance, the melodramatic body language and the inner turmoil that are revealed through the landscapes in the background, now reach new levels of intensity. This creates a feeling that a thin red line is linking together all the subjects of the various works in a single contemporary and profoundly theatrical story, filled with problematic relationships, lusty behaviors and overcharged actions.
Tania Marmolejo Andersson: Telenovela Life
Tania also investigates on a deeper level the idea of the character as the artist alter-ego and numerous psychological analysis and erudite references connected to the relations that could sprout between the artist, the artwork and the spectator.
This emotion and, on the other side, its tension, is expressed mostly through the intensity of the stare, that is sharply looking for the viewer’s gaze, hoping not only to produce a mirrored reaction in them, but also a stronger, profound response, able to make them feel slightly uncomfortable, just in order to push it to the recognition of an occult feeling in themselves capable to unlock formerly never explored speculations.
Tania Marmolejo Andersson: Telenovela Life
Tania’s work juxtaposes the intimate and personal implications with the monumental, creating compositions driven by ambiguous female facial expressions. She is also exploring issues of gender and identity as a Scandinavian Caribbean female artist, using the portraits and physical expression as a system of communicating vessels to transfers emotions into the viewers creating affective and spontaneous empathy.
Tania Marmolejo Andersson: Telenovela Life
Tania Marmolejo Andersson
"Telenovela Life"
June 09 - July 02
GR Gallery
255 Bowery (between Houston & Stanton) New York, NY 10002
Tania Marmolejo Andersson
was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (1975). Influenced by her Scandinavian and Caribbean heritage, she studies Graphic Design and Illustration in Norway and returns to the Dominican Republic to study Fine Arts at the Altos de Chavón School of Design. In 1998 she receives the Bluhdorn Scholarship, and continues her studies at Parsons The New School for Design in New York, graduating from Fine Arts and Illustration in 2000. She begins her artistic career as an illustrator for the fashion and lifestyle sections of Obsidiana magazine (New York). Since then, her work has been exhibited in numerous collective and solo national and international exhibitions, several Iberoamerican Art Salons in Washington DC, representing Dominican Republic; as well as in international art fairs.
Marmolejo was selected to represent the Dominican Republic with her textile designs at the Fourth and Sixth Ibero-American Design Biennial (BID), in Madrid, Spain, in 2014 and 2018. Her artwork has been displayed as part of important national cultural campaigns in the Dominican Republic and she has been recognized as a remarkable Dominican contemporary artist by important Dominican magazines and institutions.
Marmolejo is also the author of 2 books and the illustrator of a children book series. She currently resides in New York, where she is devoted full time to her artistic practice.
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