Art as a revelation by Teresa Gancedo

BarcelonaThe artist Teresa Gancedo (Tejedo del Sil, 1937) has one foot in this world and another in that of ideas. With often humble materials, Gancedo projects herself into a spiritual world full of insects, flowers, and angels, as can be seen in the exhibition dedicated to her by Espai Vayreda in Olot until April 12th. This exhibition is the first by Vayreda Foundation. "Upon entering Teresa's studio, I perceived a filtered atmosphere and a slowed-down time, perhaps similar to what underlies the interior of a temple where our presence becomes evanescent, even weightless," recalls the exhibition curator and artistic director of the gallery, Natàlia Chocarro.

"The filtered and slightly oblique autumn light settles discreetly on a pile of objects resting on a large central table. They are odds and ends of all kinds: wooden balls and shoe forms, papers of all types, cut-out photographs, pencils, markers, scissors... which, over the days, end up illuminating her paintings," explains Chocarro, who relates the atmosphere of Gancedo's works to those of old masters like Vermeer and Fra Angelico. "Teresa Gancedo's work stands as a liminal territory where painting becomes not only a gesture, but also the revelation of a constant search. In the face of the prevailing currents, Gancedo has built a perceptual refuge where each form acquires the gravity of a symbol that, placed in the pictorial landscape, assumes a poetic intention. Her work, more than to be contemplated, asks to be auscultated, because only in its beat, in the incessant impulse of its pulsation, will we be able to feel its true nature," explains the curator.

Gancedo herself states that, when faced with an object, she does not simply see it as a thing, but goes beyond and thinks about the owner and the feelings of this unknown person. "I strive to grasp reality, to assume it and internalize it. I seek the fusion of external reality and the felt internal reality," says Gancedo. Thus, in her works from the nineties, one can see compositions with symmetries that evoke "liturgical arrangements and that are halfway between Eastern Orthodox iconography and surrealism". Born in the midst of the Civil War, her parents had moved from Madrid to the village of Tejedo del Sil, where they spent about four years. It was there that she came into contact with a nature that would later filter into her painting.

When she was a teenager, Teresa Gancedo had such a strong artistic vocation that she painted in class and ended up being expelled from school. So her father eventually reacted and found her an art teacher, Josep Beulas, who encouraged her to continue. When she got married, her training was interrupted. The couple moved to Barcelona, and when their two children were grown, Gancedo enrolled at the Escola Massana to continue her studies. She had her first exhibition in 1972 at the Sala Provincial de Lleó, presented by the poet Antonio Gamoneda. In the eighties, she consolidated her own symbolic repertoire and her participation in the exhibition New images from Spain is noteworthy, presented in New York at the Spanish Institute and the Guggenheim Museum in 1980, and later at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Teresa Gancedo's work is part of prominent collections such as those of MoMA and the Guggenheim in New York, the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, and Macba.

Art as a space for contemplation

Teresa Gancedo's exhibition in Olot is the first in a cycle of four shows dedicated to visionary women artists that will continue with Magda Bolumar, Josefa Tolrà, and Joana Cera. The title of the cycle, Verònica, refers to the idea of "veritable icon", the “true image”, and to the notion of an image that is not only represented, but is revealed "by contact, like an imprint". “The project proposes an intimate journey through the artistic itineraries of four creators who approach the world from a unique perspective and establish a deep link between artistic practice and life experience", says Chocarro. "Teresa Gancedo, Magda Bolumar, Josefa Tolrà, and Joana Cera share a genealogy of art understood as a space of contemplation and revelation, where gesture becomes thought and gaze opens paths that blur the boundaries between the visible and intuition. In their practices, light, their own and that of their surroundings, becomes the matrix of a knowledge resulting from a permeable relationship with the world. The art of these four creators confirms and expresses that form is not only construction, but also an imprint of life and consciousness”, adds Chocarro.