Exploring nature and landscape as material in art
Verónica González Ugarte's recent work is deeply connected to landscape and territory in its multiple dimensions: ecological, aesthetic, and historical. Drawing on references such as botany, cartography, and landscape painting, González proposes a body of work that offers a poetic perspective on nature and the ways we observe, preserve, and impact it. Fire plays a central role here.
With as many languages as viewpoints, the artist conveys her urgency about what unsettles and moves her: the dangers of global warming, the unshakable beauty of nature in its countless forms, the secret and unexpected connections between realms, and the poetic leaps from written language to visual language. González expands her exploration of ways to think about and represent nature, attending to the characteristics of space as well as the unique properties of the mediums and materials she intervenes.
Verónica González's work may evoke that of early traveling painters. Like them, the artist explores various territories, materializing her experience through a wide range of artistic resources: painting, drawing, printmaking, and mixed techniques, all employed without ostentation, driven by the expressive need of a curious artist. Her travels push her to challenge preconceived ideas about nature in a series of encounters that, in this exhibition, take her from Santa Marta, Colombia, to the Martian-like surface of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands.
It’s not just about the naturalistic recording that sometimes emerges in her works. Above all, it’s a representation that acknowledges space as a vast surface, unfolding from the artist’s touch to her eye and, ultimately, to the viewers.
