Henrique Faria Fine Art
35 East 67th Street, fourth floor,
Manhattan
Through March 22
Developments
in Emilia Azcárate’s art appear to reflect changes in her spiritual
life. Born in Venezuela in 1964, now living in Spain, Ms. Azcárate was
raised Roman Catholic, joined the Krishna consciousness movement in her
20s, and more recently became a devotee of Nichiren Buddhism. All three
disciplines are ritual-intensive, and so, in different ways, is the work
in Ms. Azcárate’s first New York solo.
The
circular shape, in essence an interfaith form, predominates. One
example fills a wall: Its radiating and concentric lines are composed of
metal bottle caps the artist has collected in her travels, each
flattened and cut into spiky florets representing Hindu and Buddhist
chakras or wheels. A few small pictures on paper have designs worked out
from strings of alphabetical letters typed on an old typewriter.
A
group of dozens of watercolor paintings on wood panels seems, with the
works’ bright colors and busy patterns, designed far less to focus the
eye or mind than to keep both on the move. And the grouping itself is
kinetic. The different-size panels are ganged together upright and
free-standing on a shelf, and visitors are invited to rearrange them as
they please.
Piece
by piece, there’s nothing formally new about Ms. Azcárate’s art, but
the potential for hands-on interaction is appealing, as is the
ritualistic ongoingness of her project. During the course of the show,
new mandalas arrive at the gallery each week, painted and typed on
postcards sent from her studio in Madrid, or from wherever she may be.
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