'Agua' exhibit channels 19th century Japanese artist

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
Sept. 7, 2009

Arctic ice floats gently along the pond. Clouds hang low and thick, masking the mountains behind them. Angry ocean waves curl violently against the wind.

These black-and-white images all form part of Mexican artist Marisol Paredes' photography exhibition "Historias de AguO ("Stories of Water"), on display now at the Mexico City gallery Medellín 174 in Colonia Roma.

The 18-piece collection, part of the international Fotoseptiembre program, will be up through Friday, Sept. 25.

The exhibit also pays homage to Hokusai, a 19th century Japanese painter who is best known for his 1833 woodblock print series "36 Views of Mount Fuji" and whose images capture the majesty of Japan's natural landscape.

"My project seeks to find expression through this artist, his movement, and also the representation of nature as something great and sublime," Paredes said, adding that her ink-on-cotton photographs have contrasts, textures and tones similar to Hokusai's prints. The images are individual impressions and have not been reproduced elsewhere except for this exhibition.

Paredes said she first learned about the Japanese artist as a university student; she later solidified her fascination with Hokusai during a 2006 trip to Japan, where she saw his original works at the Tokyo National Museum.

"He is very subtle in how he uses lines and contrasts in the presentation of movement," she said in an interview before the exhibit's Sept. 3 inauguration.

While her previous photo exhibition captured the details, antiquities and modernity of Japanese architecture, this 2008 reinterpretation of Hokusai's work will be Paredes' first time working with nature as a central theme.

"This exhibit is about water - ice, the sea, clouds, fog, everything that is water, but with a touch of Hokusai's paintings," she said, explaining that the titles of her works are adapted from those of the Japanese painter.

Paredes' photo series "Las 100 vistas del Monte Fuji" ("100 Views of Mount Fuji"), for example, is reminiscent of Hokusai's early 1800s collection.

Through the Medellín gallery's tall turquoise doors and up the narrow staircase, "100 views" is presented as a triptych, a three-frame piece capturing tranquil watery ripples and calm ocean waves.

The nearby triptych "La gran ola de Kanagawau" ("The Great Wave off KanagawO), however, depicts thrashing, ominous waves pulling the water up into forceful curls. The water is a smooth deep black, contrasting with the bright white foam of the waves.

In individual pieces from her series "Mil imágenes del oceáno" ("A Thousand Images of the Ocean"), a photograph illustrates scattered shards of arctic ice floating peacefully above pitch-black water. Another photo captures thick pillars of stalagmites as they grope upward to the top of a cave.

In Paredes' "Ciclo" ("Cycle") series, four separate photographs picture various stages of clouds as they move through the sky. In the first, the clouds create dark and light contrasts as they scatter like pulled bits of tissue. The second photo shows puffy clouds covering the sky like a quilted cotton blanket.

Organizer Carlos Castillo commented in the exhibit's press release that, "Nature, today like yesterday, is again taking its place, invading themes and motifs, demanding renewed attention. Remember that it's there, generous and expectant, waiting for us to return its love with the spell of its silence, its call and the cry of its sea."