Britt Stigler
“Art created a space where emotions, experiences and perspectives could exist without needing immediate conclusions or fixed positions.” – Macarena Rojas Osterling
In a post on Instagram, artist Macarena Rojas Osterling leans gently on a glass sculpture, her eyes closed with her head turned upward, a smile stretched across her face. Behind her is a large drawing, folds evident as if the paper could close in on itself at a moment’s notice. The photograph fizzes with movement, with even the glass sculpture appearing like a block of ice that is melting and changing form.
The image comes at the end of a carousel posted by Praxis Gallery as a sneak peek for the artist’s debut solo show in New York, “In the Whitewater.” On view through July 10, the exhibition includes drawings, paintings and sculptures by Osterling.
“Ultimately, ‘In the Whitewater’ is an exhibition around acknowledgment, actuality and process. Intense and real, it lures you in with its visual delicacy and appearing softness only to reveal a beautifully, joyfully and at times painfully raw entanglement,” writes Jenn Ellis about the exhibition in a moving essay posted on Praxis’ website. “Much like the ocean, the exhibition and Osterling’s practice isn’t shy or apologetic, polite or subdued; it pulls the tension strings between calm and abounding, and, like a wave, wraps us in its evocative roar.”
