The Surviving Image
Diego Delas, Anna Gonzalez Noguchi & Mia Vallance
left to right:
Diego Delas
Agüeros De Los Neustros II
Hand-sewn Banners
Approx. 180 x 110 cm (70.9 x 43.3 In.)
2015
Anna Gonzalez Noguchi
Minyo Playlist #06
Engraved Staples
19 x 10.5 x 0.9 cm
(7.5 x 4.1 x 0.35 In.)
2022
The everyday objects that surround us, the popular culture images and major news events that are part of our shared experience, merge to create our group consciousness, a form of cultural memory that resides not in an individual mind but in a common realm.
Made by artists working across mediums and under a diverse range of geographic, political, social, and aesthetic circumstances, the works in The Surviving Image allow to reect not only on their dierences, but also to consider their shared concerns, summoning personal and collective memory and addressing current conditions through the lens of cultural and aesthetic tradition.
As history began to be dened as a discipline, the sense grew that memory was subjective and concerned with the inner life. During the Enlightenment and Romantic period, the concept of memory emerged as something personal and bound up with identity.
Art is an ideal medium for the intimate and confessional, lending itself to diaristic and autobiographical forms. As these artists show, all experience can be manifest in art, whether captured in the moment or recollected in tranquillity. Incorporating references to personal, folk, and collective histories, the works in the exhibition critically reect on the criteria and categories through which recent art-historical memory has been forged.
Co-curated by Marco Galvan & Jerry Zerui Guo
Stemming from her Grandfather's handwritten lyrics of a karaoke playlist that includes 94 minyo songs (Japanese folk songs), Anna Gonzalez Noguchi’s Minyo Playlist series rearticulates the relationship between object and memory, Titled after the corresponding track number, each work is a ne assemblage of stacks of staples arranged in multiple formats and modules. Inspired by the illustrations on the vinyl covers, traditional gures and objects emerge from the engraved surface as a result of an etching process that recalls popular Japanese woodcut. Stationary often appears in Gonzalez Noguchi’s work as an intrinsic, indexical way to organise and remember dierent moments in time.Through a mundane yet intimate support, the series renegotiates memory and the capacity to anchor experience in tangible forms, in a delicate balance between removing and revealing.
In constant erosion and renewal, the layers and signs in Mia Vallance’s paintings are a cipher for memories and emotions that can be frank and poetic, intimate and universal. Like after-images of an experience that remains particularly vivid, her work often alludes to everyday objects and the urban landscape, using acrid and rarefied colours to exemplify the complex relationship between modern society and the natural world. Images are re-appropriated and erased to achieve a layering of coexisting dimensions and events that uctuate on the same plane with a languid, meditative and hypnotic rhythm.The surface of the canvas, such as in Red Moves the Blood (2023) reveals darker elements beneath, oering a new interpretation to abstraction, which is made to appear here not as an art of pure surface but an expression dependent on memory signs.
Diego Delas’ work explores conventions related to remembering, representing and reconstructing the past, materials and ideas. The works in the exhibition, such as Sol Invictus (2019) or Donde Tenga la Cabeza (2019), look at vernacular architectural motifs of Northern Spain that constitute the idea of the house as a familiar body sustained by memories and repetitions, and populated with spells and amulets.
As an architect, artist and researcher, his work revolves around subjective memory and the use of architecture and traditional craft techniques to create complex, layered narratives that explore the intersection of personal and collective experiences. Characterised by the presence of symbols and elements that recall magic realism, the bright hand-sewn banners Agueros de los Nuestros I - III (2015), become manifestos that contribute to a knowledge-creating process aiming to reinterpret a pre-modern culture in regression,
In the gallery space, the works appear like memory glimpses that intertwine to generate new contexts and cultural iconographies, reecting — directly or indirectly — upon the state of the world today, while echoing cultural and historical memories on which societies build their identities.
Left: Mia Vallance 'Roots'; Right: Diego Delas 'Sol Invictus'
Anna Gonzalez Noguchi
Minyo Playlist #84
Engraved Staples
12.8 x 12.8 x 0.9 cm ( 5 x 5 x 0.35 In.)
2023
Mia Vallance
Roots
Oil on Canvas
100 x 130 cm (39.4 x 51.2 In.)
2022
Diego Delas
Donde Tenga La Cabeza
Oil, Acrylic, Ink and Pastel on Paper and Wood
67 x 37 cm (26.4 x 14.6 In.)
2019
Anna Gonzalez Noguchi
Minyo Playlist #91
Engraved Staples
11.5 x 14 x 0.9 cm (4.5 x 5.5 x 0.35 In.)
2023
Mia Vallance
Red Moves the Blood
Oil on Canvas
140 x 110 cm( 55.1 x 43.3 In.)
2023
Diego Delas
Agüeros De Los Neustros III
Hand-sewn Banners
Approx. 180 x 110 cm (70.9 x 43.3 In.)
2015
Diego Delas (b.1983) is an artist, architect, and researcher whose work revolves around the intersections between pre-modern cultures, architecture, storytelling, and magical thinking. His work focuses on the reconstruction, repetition, and re-interpretation of vernacular architectural motifs that embody notions of optimism, renovation, and renewal. Delas's site-specic installations address issues such as subjective memory and the use of architecture and ornamentation as vehicles for storytelling. His pieces invite the viewer to engage with the works as familiar bodies that are sustained by memories, repetitions, and imbued with spells and amulets.
Recent exhibitions include Supersaludo (Cabeza borradora), solo exhibition at CAB Burgos, Burgos SP (2023); A Warmth from Within / Calidez del Adentro, duo with Julius Heinemann at F2 Galeria, Madrid SP (2021); Claro De Bosque; Group exhibition at Intersticio, Madrid SP (2021). Diego is recipient of Phd at Ruskin College of Art, University of Oxford and MA Painting at the Royal College of Art, amongst other grants and scholarships.
Anna Gonzalez Noguchi (b.1992) is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work explores the intersection of memory, identity, and materiality. Born in Japan, and now based in Athens, Gonzalez Noguchi's diverse cultural background has had a signicant impact on her practice.Gonzalez Noguchi's work is characterised by her use of everyday objects and materials, which she repurposes and recontextualizes to reect on personal and collective histories. Her work often incorporates references to folk and traditional cultures, as well as personal memories and experiences. She is particularly interested in exploring the ways in which memory can be anchored in tangible forms and the role that objects play in shaping individual and cultural identity.
Recent exhibitions include Portable Elastic Temple, at Pet Projects, Athens GR (2022); An hearing of an absence, at Haus N, Athens GR (2022) ; Art Athina with South Parade, Athens GR (2022) ; On the Other Hand, Canary Wharf Estate, London UK (2021). Anna is recipient of MA Sculpture at Royal College of Art and Gilbert Bayes Trust, amongst other grants and scholarships.
Mia Vallance (b.1998) is a contemporary British artist known for her abstract paintings that explore the relationship between the natural world and modern society.
Vallance's work is characterised by a layered approach, where she builds up textures and colours to create complex, multi-dimensional images. Her paintings often incorporate elements of the urban landscape, such as street signs and billboards, which she juxtaposes against organic forms and shapes. Through this process, Vallance explores the ways in which human activity impacts the environment, and the ways in which nature can persist and adapt in response.
Recent exhibitions include Bury a Friend, at Roman Road, London GB (2023); Painting for a short future, solo at Superzoom, Paris FR (2022); Refresh, with Hatch, Paris FR (2022). Mia is recipient of BFA at Central Saint Martins, shortlisted for the John Moore Painting Prize (2020), amongst other grants and scholarships.
