Xippas is delighted to announce the first solo exhibition of the painter Chechu Álava in its Parisian gallery, which will feature a dozen of her most recent and previously unseen paintings. Entitled L’Âme et la Vie (The Soul and Life), after Carl Gustav Jung’s book, the exhibition will explore the dynamic frontier between the physical and the spiritual, where the two become intertwined. On the threshold of this enigmatic zone, akin to a realm of archetypes, we will be invited to ask ourselves questions – or rather to respond to alchemical intuitions, of both the most intimate and most universal kind, which delve as much into the within as the beyond.
One of the principal themes of Chechu Álava’s paintings is women and femininity. Fragility combined with strength, motherhood coming face to face with artistic creation: as a female artist, it is essential to know how to communicate in several “languages”...and to be able to switch between numerous realities, crossing the frontiers between home and the studio. The women who inhabit Chechu Álava’s paintings pay homage to real figures – in particular to those women artists, writers and poets – Anna Akhmatova, Lee Miller, Suzanne Valadon… – who have managed to create, despite all the obstacles, and continue to serve as inspirational models. Sometimes they appear in the guise of mythical creatures, like Eve or Olympia, to come closer to the idea of primordial creation. All of these women, moreover, have often been constrained by the restrictive vision of the “male gaze”, subjected to its objectifying power. Painting them over and again is a healing gesture that decontextualizes them in order to reincarnate or bring them back into the fold, but this time with deep empathy, love and admiration.
Chechu Álava was born in Piedras Blancas, Asturias (Spain) in 1973. She lives and works in Paris.
The work by Chechu Álava has featured in numerous institutional exhibitions: in 2020 the Thyssen Bornemisza museum (Madrid) has dedicated her a solo show (Rebeldes); her artworks have also been shown in Museu Fundacion Juan March (Palma de Mallorca), in Lazaro Galdiano Museum (Madrid), in Barjola Museum (Gijon, Spain), at Cervantès Institute (Rome), in the Fine Art Museum of Castellón de la Plana (Castellón, Spain), in Carré de Baudouin (Paris), at la Cité des Arts (Paris). They are part of important public collections: the Fine Arts Museum of Asturias, the Spanish Ministry of Culture, the Government Headquarters of Asturias, the DKV Foundation, but also numerous private collections in such countries as Colombia, Mexico, Germany, Portugal, United States, France, United Kingdom, South Africa, South Korea and Spain.
In 2014, her œuvre was chosen by an international selection committee to feature in the “100 Painters of Tomorrow” catalogue published by Thames and Hudson.
Entrada actualizada el el 24 oct de 2022
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