Exhibitions
When matter takes time: Mercedes Pimiento inaugurates the exhibition year at La Capella
A search that is a tentative one explores the slow transformation of wax, light and temperature in dialogue with the architecture of the art center.
The La Capella Art Center, in the Raval neighborhood, kicks off the new exhibition year with A Search That Is a Temptation , by Mercedes Pimiento, a proposal that can be visited until April 12. The exhibition unfolds as an immersive journey that invites attentive and leisurely observation, in tune with the material processes that the artist puts into play.
The project is based on a set of sculptures that closely dialogue with the architecture and specific conditions of La Capella. In this context, Pimiento delves into the study of the physical properties and behaviors of materials such as beeswax, paraffin and rosin, emphasizing their response to the passage of time, light and temperature variations. This is a research that gives continuity to previous works, but which here expands and takes on a new spatial and conceptual dimension.
Conceived as an installation composed of slowly transforming presences, the work constructs a subtle choreography between matter, light and heat, in which the materials not only occupy the space but also modify and tense it. The internal rhythm of the sculptural bodies establishes a temporality of its own, changing and fragile, which displaces the viewer's perception and places them in front of a sensitive time, far from immediacy and open to the experience of the process.
The artist proposes a play of tensions between the mobility of the wax in a state of fusion —with the swirls and displacements it generates— and the immobile solidity of the walls of La Capella. The wax appears contained in large containers that emit heat and which, in contrast to the coldness of the room —perceptible in the warmed bodies of the visitors— give rise to forms in constant transformation, fragile and changing.
As the author herself explains, the intention of the project stems from this direct experience with the material: “Working with beeswax leads you to discover that nature follows unpredictable patterns, but that, at the same time, are repeated and can be recognized in other natural contexts.” In this sense, the work relates organic processes, perception and space, inviting us to observe how the mutable unfolds within an apparently stable structure.
The wax pieces located in the central nave react directly to the thermal cycles of heating and cooling generated by the resistors, making visible processes of continuous transformation. In contrast, the sculptures located in the side chapels take the form of solid bodies, made through formwork processes that define their volume and presence. Due to their dimensions and weight, these pieces have been produced in situ, within La Capella itself, thus reinforcing the link between work, space and production process.
