Or-Namen-t
by
Isabel Flores
Curator:Jorge Canete
In collaboration and with the support of the Municipality of Grandson, The Castle of Grandson and the Spanish Embassy in Bern
November 2023 - January 2024
Opening in the presence of the artist on Thursday 9 November from 6:30 p.m.
Artistic journey through Grandson on 3 sites:
1) The terrace of the Château de Grandson
2) The Temple on Rue Haute
3) La Galerie Philosophique, 36 rue Haute
OR-NAMEN-T:a traveling exhibition that pays homage to the Gothic architecture of Grandson
Isabel Flores' work explores the expressive qualities of ornament, an excuse to generate immersive spaces, through monumental paintings, which weave links with architecture, embodied on textiles or paper, in large format installations. It is all these dimensions that fascinate the artist, especially since each of the motifs can have a symbolic dimension and echo different cultures.
The exhibition, proposed and created for Grandson, is inspired by a Gothic motif found on the various selected sites: the silhouette of a Gothic window.
Swiss art historian Markus Brüderlin (curator at the Fondation Beyeler) suggests a play on words: “Ornament” in German. Dividing it into “or-namen-t”, Brüderlin explains that “ort” means place and “namen” means to name, so that the ornament gives a name to the place, positions it and highlights it.
Isabel Flores offers this same philosophy and this way of working in the place and with the place in her exhibition, aptly named “Or-namen-t.
“I work with the expansive capacity of ornament to create enveloping spaces through painting beyond the limits of the frame, on architecture, walls, textiles or paper. Some of my paintings are large format pictorial installations.
In my research, ornament - present in all cultures around the world - is described as the shape that repeats indefinitely on a surface. It is characterized by variation and the desire for abstraction which can be caused by an error or the modification in the evolution of the form. For me, it is a language that allows me to talk about the relationship between ornament and abstraction, between ornament and culture.
I appropriate and nourish the ornamental forms that I extract from known objects, surfaces and places, I collect them, and document them. The ornaments are transformed during the creative process. The use of materials such as wallpaper or textiles underlines the decorative quality of the work and transfers to the exhibition space an element associated with the domestic and feminine sphere.
Thus, with architecture as a support and ornament as a language, the space is transformed and a relationship takes place between the being, the object, the place and the architectural space. Geometry and ornamentation allow us to change our point of view on painting and the hierarchies between ornamental and art.”
Isabel Flores
BIOGRAPHY
Her academic training was shared between the Faculty of Fine Arts of Seville (08/13), that of La Laguna, in Tenerife (11/12) and that of the Mimar Sinan Güzel Sanatlar University of Istanbul (12/ 13).
After her diploma, she obtained a Master's degree in contemporary art, creation and research at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Pontevedra (13/14.
She moved to Berlin where she stayed until 2016, when she returned to Madrid.
Isabel Flores currently resides in Extremadura and continues her training in the doctoral program in Creation and Research in Contemporary Art at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Pontevedra.
Her doctoral research continues and deepens the theoretical and practical research initiated in 2012 around ornament in painting.
