Elementos intangibles by María Clara Rossi

Curator: Catalina Bunge
Artist: María Clara Rossi
Venue: Fundación Iturria
Date: 27 de marzo al 27 de abril

There is a solemn air and an intentional neutrality in Rossi’s faces. Her work delves into the enigmas of identity, using audacity as an ally. Close-up portraits, sometimes frontal, sometimes in profile, and always in large format, are painted with intense delicacy. However, seemingly whimsical details—glimmers, piercings, loose strands of hair—break through as subtle gestures, inviting the viewer to connect with the latent rebellion in each face.

“The meaning of images is magical,” suggests Vilém Flusser. From the earliest cave representations, symbolic and revealing, to digital post-production and AI-generated images, art has used imagery as a vehicle for dialogue with the viewer. When we confront an image, we reconstruct the abstracted dimensions it contains, creating a nearly magical event where two intentions converge: that of the observer and that of the image itself.

Today, the image has been elevated to an object of worship, overflowing its own narrative nature and, at times, losing depth. The consumption of digital images is constant, superficial, and fleeting—on social media, across the internet, and through the immediacy of our screens. Our reality is staged through millions of chromatic particles that unfold at a dizzying pace, shaping our imagination. What value do we assign to the image as a source? With what awareness do we consume it? Even the most literal images can hold multiple interpretations, but do we allow space for them?

A painted portrait is not merely a fixed image. It is the result of hours of dedication, immersion, and negotiation between the artist and the subject—an exercise in deep exploration of the other and of herself, in an attempt to capture what eludes the eye. Rossi invites us to transcend the image as mere representation and venture into the intangible essence of the faces she portrays, into their symbolic weight and what they evoke within us. She offers us a portal to observe beyond seeing, to be moved, and to reconnect with the magical power of images.

Are we capable of interpreting their true magnitude? Of valuing an image beyond its fleeting appearance?

Catalina Bunge