PROFUNDIDAD｜Christiane Pooley Solo Exhibition Introduction

Life is elsewhere (Detail), 2023. Oil and watercolor on canvas. 170 x 260 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin

In Christiane Pooley's work, waterfalls, ponds, wheat fields, and highways are recurring themes. These seemingly peaceful landscapes, whose exact locations and historical periods are unclear, contain dark undercurrents beneath their serene appearance. The Araucanía region of Chile, where the artist was born and raised, has long been a breeding ground for complex tensions. Conflicts between indigenous people (predominantly Mapuche) and the Chilean government intensified at the end of the 19th century when the Chilean government seized their land and imposed Chilean citizenship on them. Before that, the Mapuche had fought Spanish colonizers for over 300 years. Pooley’s work depicts Arcaunia’s hidden past and tensions over land ownership with a deceptively calm beauty. At what moment does a landscape represent nature, extraction and production, a repository of collective memories, or a homeland never to return to?

These questions are encoded in Pooley's paintings, which always originate from and return to these archetypal images. One such archetype is the dreamlike hut floating alone on the water's surface. This is not an imagery of a dream but rather a nomadic dwelling style from southern Chile. Locals gather to help neighbors move their houses collectively in response to changes in environment and family life. This ritual of communal reciprocity from Andean cultural tradition is known as Minga, or Mink'a, and it contradicts the spirit of modernity on many levels. This kind of dislocation and paradox are at the core of the artist's images. The scenes are drawn from the artist's own photography, family albums, or Chile's national historical archives. They are both specific and ambiguous, full of ineffable psychological undertones. The cascading waterfall cut off by a large color block, with a reclining male figure of uncertain fate at its bottom; a group of horseback riders crossing an abstract glacier-like zone, under an upsidedown suspended volcano—all the figurative depictions occur in the crevice between two large intertwined color blocks.

Profundidad (Depth), 2022 - 2023. Oil on canvas. 73 x 60 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin

As a descendant of Chilean and European immigrants, belonging has become a complex subject and an unattainable feeling. Pooley doesn't feel she truly "belongs" to her homeland, or to any place at all — as connected as she is with it. She is in constant state of migration and perpetual search, from Araucanía to Santiago, to London and Paris. In her paintings, she ponders how individuals are shaped by structural forces, how identity is molded by ancestral heritage, by one's personal history of migration, and whether one's relationship to the land can be labeled as "ownership." Just as in Río Renaico, where the floating huts rest on the water's surface, while the night sky reveals grid-like maps once used to divide the local land. The nomadic lifestyle rooted in the local climate and survival needs has become a subject of "planning" after encountering Western modernity. As modern humans, all aspects of our lives are also subject to certain "planning" and discipline, including our own selves.

Weaving spaces, 2022 - 2023. Oil on canvas. 165 x 125 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin

In Pooley's work, a distinct ambiguity is often evident. The figures’ faces become blurred surfaces, pointing towards a kind of anonymity or universality. Who are these individuals? What history have they experienced? Are they also in perpetual search for answers in their own stories? These details remain elusive in the blurred silhouettes. Her selfportrait, To Ground Myself, follows suit. Her head merges surreally with the blue mountains behind, denoting a complex interweaving of her ambiguous identity and the vague landscapes, where existentialist angst intersects with a sense of displacement. Every landscape contains specific references, yet each feels familiar. Large color blocks oscillate between the figurative and the abstract, forcing viewers to seek a balance. If landscapes or sceneries can't be owned, what can be extracted, what can be used for identification?

Exhibition Details

• PROFUNDIDAD｜Christiane Pooley Solo Exhibition
• Date: 31 Aug - 14 Oct 2023
• Time: 11:00-19:00 (Tuesday to Saturday)
• Venue: Perrotin Hong Kong
• Address: 807, K11 ATELIER Victoria Dockside, 18 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong

The source of the above information: Hong Kong Perrotin official website