PUNTA DEL ESTE - BLACK GALLERY PRESENTS ITS CATALOG FOR ESTE ARTE 2021

María Freire (1917-2015, Uruguay) is a pioneer in geometric abstraction in painting and sculpture, making her a benchmark of Latin American concrete art. Her work, extensive and rich as her career, surprises for the investigations she carried out, developing her own language of abstract figures. Her breakthrough work, her indomitable character and her active presence in the delivery of knowledge -as critic and teacher- made her transcend with a unique and key creation to understand the birth of contemporary art was in her country and region. She was co-founder, along with her husband José Pedro Costigliolo, of the Non-Figurative Art Group (1952). Between 1954 and 1992 she exhibited in different cities around the world. In 1953 and 1957 she participated in the São Paulo Biennials where she obtained the Honor Prize, and in the Venice Biennale in 1966. In 1996 she was awarded the Figari Prize for her career. Her work is part of the permanent collections, among others, of the MoMA in New York, the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, the MALBA in Buenos Aires and the National Museum of Visual Arts in Uruguay, as well as in private collections around the world.

Pati Fernández Graña (b. 1968, Uruguay) began her career in painting, gradually drifting towards a more sculptural work and creating installations of various dimensions. Her work is characterized by the use of vibrant colors in flat shapes that come from her personal research on art. Starting from the figurative and appropriating the images that make up her affective world, she extrapolates the traces that these portraits leave over time. The permanence of the form, the silhouette, the experience and the memory become the true raw material of creation, which in her work becomes abstraction. Fernández proposes a new vision of Uruguayan plan painting. She has exhibited in different cities around the world since 2009 and her work is in private collections in Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, the United States and France, among others.

Fede Ruíz Santesteban (b. 1980, Uruguay) is a contemporary artist whose photographic work seeks to recover the fantastic act of materializing images by his own means, exploring the photographic power of various materials that he finds in his surroundings. Thus, he experiments with alternative processes, focusing on sustainable strategies and abandoning the traditional analog lab. In turn, the content of his work is based on his personal and intimate perspective at his own life and what surrounds it, turning the particular into universal. The result is an intimate and astonishing work that raises questions of memory, the ephemeral and the relationship of man with his environment. Ruiz is an architect and teaches photography at his own cultural center. His work has been exhibited in Uruguay, Argentina, Cuba, Austria, Portugal and Angola.

In the work of Meram Sáa (b. 1963, Argentina), the feminine is imposed as an inexhaustible source of inspiration, moving away from the standards of conventional contemporary beauty. Her sculptures address the theme of women and their environment with permanent experimentation on different materials and their possible combinations. Wood, iron, cardboard, all kinds of debris from everyday life, she looks for them, puts them together, takes them apart, cuts and rejoins them and sometimes mixes them until the shapes emerge, modeling and aligning naturally. Primary forms that are repeated, sometimes lead to the abstract and others to the figurative, but always referring to nature, the organic, and thus turning them into timeless symbols. After developing a career in advertising and later in theater, she finds her means of expression in art, specifically sculpture. Since 1996 she has exhibited mainly in Uruguay and Argentina in group and individual exhibitions in which he stands out for a stimulating installation proposals for the senses where the viewer is involved through light, shadow and sound games.

Black Gallery is a contemporary art gallery that represents established and influential Uruguayan artists who dialogue with young artists in activity. Founded and directed by Mercedes Sader and Patricia Fernández Graña in 2014, the gallery encourages innovation in curatorial practices, always maintaining the highest levels of quality in its artistic productions. This is actively put into practice through a select program of exhibitions created in close collaboration with its artists; a production platform that provides continuous support to its artists beyond the gallery space. Black Gallery exhibits the work of its artists at its home in Pueblo Garzón as well as at international art fairs, fulfilling its mission to participate in the art world in an active and influential way.