MARGARITA CHECA’S DOORS OF PERCEPTION
THE QUALITY OF WOOD
Let’s put it simple: there is a still ingredient in the style, in the curves, in the generous form – in the work of the sculptor Margarita Checa – which makes ponder over the growing of life. A frequency in this exhibition of couples, of animals that at a certain point she blends into one single being.
MARGARITA CHECA’S TREE
The volumes move or join together into the rhythm of a waving movement. Never before her sculptures welcome to this unstoppable walk around them that incite to the accomplished work beyond an inner vitality that subjugates and imposes the turn. Therefore, she also eludes superfluous and baroques details, and its deformities. Without putting aside naturalism, she responds to the necessity of a full balance. Every form that is modified to get the effect that the general line puts forward – gets solely dignified if it shows its aesthetic need. This is precisely her case, even when she uses marble and bronze, Margarita prefers the tree because she finds wood more noble to reproduce the human figure and animals, due to its condition of gifted material, versatility – not for this reason it turns out to be easy -, and its tenderness that may imply a living organism, suitable to go through art’s life or blood that should make them seem alive. On the other hand, the slow process of wood carving makes it possible for her to see and discover the organic life that she is creating in spite of the lack of movement and apparent death.
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Lengthened nudes made of bronze
THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION
The unmistakable sensitivity of the sculptor that neatly measures the forms in space opens depths, shape curves, and cuts out straight lines with the pleasure of someone who moulds clay or sculpts hard wood. She composes through wide rhythms. One can notice the analogous attempt over the last years; her attempt to speaking through mass, volumes, angles, cavities; layers whose thickness gradually increase. It is the pleasure of carving a consistent and tough material. Nevertheless, the syntax remains faithful to the color itself revealing a clear sensitivity, and following a precise structural intention.
The material is nothing but a rhythmic support intended to highlight – in accordance with its particular expressiveness – the basic lines of space. A master piece such as The Doors of Perception (6,80 x 3,60 feet) is already impressive for its size. One can not resist the temptation of penetrating its inner space and take its deep rhythms where the structure of the figure turns out to be unified from inside. In spite of the geometrical forms, the shields, the balance of the filled spaces and voids, it presents the movement of light and shadow thanks to the inlays of bullhorn and silver. This version is one of the most cheerful due to the sensual plasticity of the material into form.
LONG AND NUDE
The lengthened nudes – of vibrating surface by light effects – are a metaphor inspired on the everlasting vital lymph of nature. The simplified volumes of the “Eternal Circle” sculpture, the open and shining surfaces where the head of the young lady suggests a tender, natural human image, easy to recognize for its delicate modulations. The rhythmic continuity of this lengthened nude of vibrating surface thanks to the color effects, bullhorn inlays, and silver plaques on the circle where the young woman puts her feet on.
Margarita Checa’s work has reached its truly direction.
Perfect work of Margarita Checa: A truly evidence of her skills as an sculptor
Her power of statement makes us forget about the effects of detail, the craft beauty of the wood treatment to take us with greater security to the essential, to the precise rhythms that set the situation of the structure and determine its condition.
The work piece “The Shipwreck”, carved in olive wood, expresses a seducing intimacy in the children, that in spite of experiencing dramatic moments, their little faces do not express despair nor fright, but a deep calmness on board of the little boat at open sea.
This very calmness appears again in “The Dream of the Puma“ that takes us to the accuracy of the animal’s drawing, and the children that sleeps on its back – in a perfectly artistic manner – expressing the dimensions of the volumes with all the burden of gravity that the artist has interpreted.
This last exhibition of Margarita Checa at the Lucia de la Puente Gallery – Paseo Saenz Peña 206 Barranco – is a faithful testimony of the flawless skills of this artist.
EL COMERCIO, Sunday, September 12th, 2004
EXHIBITION, Margarita Checa
By Carlo Crivelli
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