Graciela Cassel :: Dynamics

Dynamics

By Rosa Faccaro

The paintings, collages and other objects of Graciela Cassel address the problematic relation of time and space in images, a theme that she has addressed in earlier works that anticipated this latest series. Her imaginative designs revolve around an axis of dynamic gesture that is found at the heart of constructive movement.

In Cassel’s work, we view an after-effect of future movements, which in turn lead to the rich discovery of “forceful lines” revealing the mobility of an object. The portrayal of an automatic gesture, the conquest of the surreal, and the painting of action that has yet to take place: these liberate the energy of the image. In these works, we see this perspective. The artist divides space with transparencies that show a vision within and without, above and below; in this manner, she portrays images with rapid-fire, instantaneous looks and simultaneous perceptions, faster than those achievable by the mechanical eye of a photographic camera. Cassel also establishes a bond with the animal world, calling forth a theme of its corporal qualities and structures that are linked with space and habitat. Therefore, we perceive the earth-feline or the water-fish, infused with vital and dynamic matter.

The image in motion, the result of conditioning perceptions in a world of multitudinous stimuli—especially that of the televised image—is the artist’s focus in her attempt to depict its apparition. The dizzying accumulation of the image, and the addition of its appearance, is a seductive element that is the result of a contemplative thinker. The fragment, the real precariousness of an image while in continual movement, suggests a perspective characteristic of our epoch and the 90’s-generation to which this young artist belongs and that which she represents.

My series of Japanese boxes is an exploration of love and its relationship with the omnipresence of “The Other.” In this sense, “The Other” might be God, “the law”, a neighbor, or merely a symbolic term. According to a lovers’ relationship to this third party, their ethics will try to guide their desire.