Mariana Penas Charrua

'Mariana Penas Charrua by Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec

 

Objects and actions radiating joy, positivity and affirmation!

 

But, wait a minute, … everything is a bit off.

 

Mariana’s artistic practice can be described as a confluence of disciplines – drawing, painting, storytelling, performance, video, object making and installations.

What connects them is an uneasy relationship between playful treatment of the mediums she uses, and the mundane objects or scenes she depicts or enacts. The enthusiastic attitude that manifests in the use of vibrant colors, quick gestures, spontaneous compositions, or a tone of her voice, is applied to depict rather uneventful scenes, such as a tree, a column, or a displaced cat in a room. This dissonance yields results that gravitate towards the grotesque – funny and uncomfortable at the same time.

 

But why this feeling?

 

It is as if Mariana is pointing towards the existential emptiness of the everyday in a joyful way, overwhelming the viewer with comfort, empathy, and angst. Through playfulness Mariana faces, reads and questions the world and own position in it, and through creative act, she/they engages the world and the self in the process of transformation, which is for her/them a way of finding light in life. For example, in a series of filmed performative actions that are taking place in everyday environments Mariana first transforms into a column, and later into a tree. From these adopted positions she/them/it examines the idea of verticality as a model for being a human, for being architecture, for being a symbol, for being a story, for being nature, and for life in general.