The Knot and the Canoe

About

The exhibition gathers four pieces by the artist, and they show the evolution of both contents and her innate interests. We enter the narrative world of Solà through Melic (navel, in Catalan). A video based on the selection of images from a visual archive that understands the body as a living space. From the interior, we move on to Louis Garrel, an emotionally charged video piece. Solà watched ‘La Frontière de l’Aube’ for the first time in 2009, and all though not particularly captivated by it as a film she became fascinated with the protagonist. Several months later, she begins a relationship with a boy who resembles the actor, and later the relationship ends.  Years go by, and the artist asks her ex to reinterpret fifteen scenes from ten of Louis Garrel’s films, with particular emphasis on the dichotomy between reality and fiction as well as the influence of cinematographic representation on popular imagery.

In ‘Jerks Game’, Solà intertwines intimacy and trust with language and comprehension. A conversation in two languages on a sofa in a student flat, Irene asking her German flat mate to open up and tell her something he had never told anyone before, in his native tongue; she does the same, and in spite of not understanding each other, together they erase the audio from the recording.

Continuing the game between reality and fiction we find `Blue Car´, lit windows through which everyday images are stolen in order to create fiction, and  where a couple inside a blue car plays the game of reconstructing and inventing their relationship from what they see in other people’s windows.

Irene Solà is a writer and an artist. Born in Malla (Barcelona) in 1990, she currently lives and works in London. Solà holds a BFA from the University of Barcelona and from Listaháskóli Ísland in Reykjavik. She completed her master’s degree in Literature, Film and Visual Culture at the University of Sussex. Her poems have been published by Galerada Editorial and Shearsman Books, and they have been included in publications such as Poetari Magazine, VOLS RUSSOS Magazine and The Lighthouse Literary Journal. She have read and held performances in Whitechapel Gallery (London), Jerwood Art Centre (London), Poesia i+ (Barcelona), Festa de la Poesia (Sitges) and the Festival de Poesia Cèntric (Barcelona), among others. Her work has been exhibited in CCCB (Barcelona), Can Felipa (Barcelona), Bòlit Centre d’Art Contemporani (Gerona), ACVIC (Vic), Le Beffroi (France) and The Art Building en Vrå (Denmark).  Solà was recently awarded the La Capella production grant (Barcelona, 2017).