Nature's Afterlives: Gabriela Albergaria & Jorge Otero-Pailos

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SAPAR Contemporary is pleased to present Nature’s Afterlives, the first shared exhibition of Gabriela Albergaria (Portugal/UK) and Jorge Otero-Pailos (Spain/US). This exhibition brings together two artists whose work focuses on Nature and the associated themes of growth and decay, history and memory, continuity and change. Albergaria’s large-scale drawings and photographs of forest vegetation expose in meticulous, meditative detail complex natural structures. From grooves of tree bark and stratified layers of stone, to carefully catalogued sequences of the colors within the lifecycle of a decomposing leaf, Albergaria’s work creates and represents manipulated environments that are both immersive and intimate. At the same time, Otero-Pailos’s work investigates the intersection of Nature and architecture. Using liquid latex as a form of building conservation technology, Otero-Pailos collects microscopic deposits of pollution in sheets of translucent rubber. Once removed from the building’s facade and displayed, these sheets function as memories in reverse, exposing to light decades of accumulated dust and the human interaction with, and impact on, the environment. Together, Albergaria and Otero-Pailos seek to engage the viewer in the pattern, rhythm, and materials of Nature. Both capture the process of time, the scientific cataloguing of nature’s activities, and the everyday interactions between humans and the environment. And in the vein of John Ruskin, the great nineteenth-century artist and critic whose 200th birthday is celebrated this year (2019), Albergaria and Otero-Pailos remind us that Ruskin’s proclamation that “if you can paint one leaf, you can paint the world” still rings true.