As an artist, Cristina Toledo is interested in transforming the nature of an image through a process of translation: she sources obscure photographic material and creates technically astute pictorial interpretations on canvas. The artist draws inspiration from an array of images she has collected from disparate sources, including the digital landscape, press clippings, and archival photos. Grouped thematically, they touch on motifs that recur in the artist's work, such as public and private memory, the representation of identity, gender, and the control mechanisms imposed on us by visible and invisible forces.
For her current exhibition, Toledo started by creating a series of paintings based on a Victorian era photograph that portrays a group of women hiding their faces, in order to stage mourning. This gesture of concealment runs contrary to the classic idea of the portrait, which exists to exalt the person being depicted, identifying him or her as a personage. Intrigued by this initial discovery, the artist began to search out additional images-taken between the mid-19th century and the early 20th century-that in some way subvert expectations of portraiture. The result is the assemblage on display-mostly women, children, or individuals whose backs are turned toward the viewer-that leave the viewer longing for a narrative, a backstory to the poses and veils.
For Toledo, the act of painting serves as an antidote to the dimensionless, ephemeral rush of images we encounter in our daily lives. As she exploits the mechanisms of painting, playing with densities to either highlight what is hidden or add to the visual drapery, she brings the subjects to life and transforms a photographic image into a cryptic and poetic sign. Through a re-materialization process, a mix of pigment and binder on a support, she creates an intimacy with the strangers in the portraits, even as they become more mysterious in their hidden identities.
Cristina Toledo (Gran Canaria, 1986) graduated in 2004 from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and currently lives in Madrid. She is currently exhibiting "Delusion" in Cámara Oscura, Madrid, and among her other more recent individual exhibitions are "An infinite search" at Pep Llabrés Art Contemporani, Mallorca (2020); "Archive of shadows" at Sala Robayera, Cudón, Cantabria (2020); "Norma Desmond's syndrome" at Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto, Gijón (2019); "Lo que se oculta" at Javier Silva Gallery, Valladolid (2019); "La emoción secuestrada" at Tournemire Gallery, Madrid (2019); "Una historia victoriana" in DA2 (DOMUS ARTIUM 2002), Salamanca (2018) and "Sacrifice" at Javier Silva Gallery, Valladolid (2017).
