RHAPSODY
-A solo exhibition at RARA residencia, Malaga, Spain; February 2022.
In this new work, Conroy explores ideas of collective identity and ancestry through the mediums of painting, photography and experimental animation techniques. .
Through the alchemy of colour, moving image and sound, the artist creates a rhapsody of fractals between life and death, signifying a memento to the eternal, the collective identity; and a homage to the ancestors and community of Villanueva Del Rosario.
Kaleidoscopic images made from a local photographic archive, mirror and depict scenes of a united community; men and women at work, children playing, weddings, local parades and events, family occasions and business owners on the backdrop of rural life from the early 20th century to the present. These altered images with complex patterns are then layered with paintings and drawings akin to the artist's idiosyncratic compositions and mark making that evoke a sacred geometry as well as signs and symbols of the eastern philosophies and cosmology. Conroy continues this treatment with a short experimental animation piece, connecting these photographs with line drawings and painted textures, in a rhythmic and memorising sequence to create a lexicon of her own esoteric language. This work is also accompanied by a composition created by the artist Maria De Grandy, which incorporates sounds that both artists collected while on residency in Villanueva Del Rosario.
This type of approach, using recurring motifs, colour and abstract forms, is what the artist refers to as a “chromatherapy” with the aim of giving the selected images from the archive a contemporary “healing” or rebirth.
In recalling our ancestors, the work attempts to universally symbolise the boundless and cyclical nature of humanity, and interconnectedness between the dead and the living, and also hopes to acknowledge the ever-evolving demographic of the village, which is slowly becoming a mountainous haven for a new generation of artists and creatives from Malaga, the wider Andalusia region and internationally.
RHAPSODY is a collaboration with local historian Franciso Álvarez Curie, and Valencia based musician and sound artist María De Grandy. The exhibition is curated by Vero Frias and Cyro Garcia, RARA residencia.
