“The void as a formal exploration of the observation” is the present exhibition of the Mexican artist Rocio Gordillo. This series of works is inspired by the research that the artist has carried on the concept of the void through a complex process of vipassana meditation.
Intending to understand how reality through a state where the mind is left empty, to observe “reality” as it is.
The exhibition presents a selection of works produced during the last year. The exhibition outlines the result of an enriching self-criticism of his previous work focused on investigating the notion of emptiness from science, in addition to studying the anatomical processes of vision, the visual processes with the brain, and the neural strategies that allow building and interacting with reality efficiently. During the last year, the artist has explored the idea of emptiness from emptiness, an investigation that has been influenced by the philosophical thought of Nagarjuna, who warns that the substance of all things is their insubstantiality; since there is no substance, what is permanent is the empty condition. What we see has no existence in itself, but is a construction of the senses and the mind. This positioning has led her research towards progressively more complex and intangible fields.
The works show a constant relationship of dependence between materiality and the continuity of the configurations that assemble more abstract forms; multiplied, extended, superimposed, or folding on themselves. At first glance, it may seem that the painted lines exist as long as their continuity is observed, but when we delve into their nature we realize their lack of autonomy. However, the continued existence of the lines is interdependent on the existence of others: the continuity of the line depends on the emptiness of the subsequent lines and the light necessary for them to be observed, but also on the malleability of the human brain, through the eye, in an attempt to provide a constant continuity and existence of the lines on the matter -or on the void-.
The richness of these works created by Gordillo lies in their ability to build encounters that deny a cohesive reading. The selection for The Void as a formal exploration of observation has tried to contextualize her most recent works with her previous production; not to delineate a progressive interpretation or discourse but as an attempt to present the complexity of the critical reading that the artist makes of the idea of observation and emptiness in her work.
Gustavo Becerril
