Ima Montoya
From 25/04/2020 To 17/05/2020
Ima Montoya’s solo show Nec Metus. Like a Rolling Stone is the second on line exhibition in the program. The Basque artist, who lives between London and Barcelona, has been researching and working on "movement" as a concept for some years. This idea is repeated throughout her career and is linked to her personal evolution. It is a journey, movement guided by our inner strength that propels us like a motor from dark to light. That human instinct to group together, to move forward, to feel that we are not alone and that there is an ethereal horizon full of light. From an (almost heavenly) perspective we can see that each individual is part of a whole. Our decisions, emotions, longings link us, forming a human tapestry that is woven, knot by knot, from lived and dreamed experiences that define us and give us purpose.
This is a series with lights and shadows, full of glazes and movement that remind us of the Baroque artists. Glazes like lived lives, ambiguities where one senses anonymous figures, that with an upward movement, are directed towards a much less oppressive part of the painting located at the top of the canvas where the stroke is freer, more ethereal. The materials used, demand to be treated in such a way that they lead us to an unexpected change. You change and evolve with each work since there is no resolution in the series, no storyline but there is a meaning as each finished work calls to the next. A journey where you cannot stay still, where you move towards a diffuse horizon, a future full of light, almost with the motto of the Roman gladiators "Nec Metus" (without fear), that makes us continue.
In these days of confusion and fear, more than ever, the series Like a Rolling Stone takes on more meaning for her. Anonymous beings connected, forming a whole, individual components with the same importance for this organic tapestry. A reminder of the false borders that we create around us, cycles that we form unconsciously with the hope for a future of light and the desire to belong and touch and the ability to generate and feel love in all its dimensions. The hope that through thousands of years has made us cross seas, climb mountains, and head to a better place.
From this cycle there are some things that will remain in our memory such as how ephemeral everything is, the incredible human solidarity and that WE ARE, that we belong. We will exit this cycle that is so dark to enter another cycle of light, a new cycle, blurred splashes of colour that reinforce the idea that we are not isolated, we are capable of creating an energy with light and shadows whose motor is human contact and hope for the future.