{"id":30995,"date":"2015-12-14T10:52:52","date_gmt":"2015-12-14T16:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=30995"},"modified":"2020-07-27T09:44:58","modified_gmt":"2020-07-27T15:44:58","slug":"borders-of-being-sarina-villareal-at-the-gallery-at-library-square","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/borders-of-being-sarina-villareal-at-the-gallery-at-library-square\/","title":{"rendered":"Borders of Being: Sarina Villareal at the Gallery at Library Square"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Efflorescent Interference<\/em>, Sarina Villareal\u2019s current exhibit at the Gallery at Library Square, explores the fine balance between the control one has over one\u2019s life and those things out of one\u2019s control, between what can be gained and what can be lost by life in the world. With paintings that are abstract and figural, concrete and amorphous, she expresses this existential struggle that happens with all of us as we live, remember and form our personal concept of the self.<\/p>\n

A native of Houston, Villareal attended Kingwood College outside of that city, where she earned an AS in graphic design, followed by a BFA in painting from the University of Houston. The artist says, \u201cI\u2019m into psychology, how the brain works, neuropsychology, with portrait and figurative work.\u201d Her works shift from semi-abstract to complete abstraction, exploring existential and psychological theory, structuralism and the nature of being and the vast territories of the mind with much room still for understanding and learning. She\u2019s represented locally by 15th<\/sup>\u00a0Street Gallery and in an exhibition she had there in September she exhibited works marked by experimental abstraction, with elements of flux, the plasticity in what might appear intangible. Her abstract gestures of color and form appeared to coalesce into floral motifs without ever fully departing from their abstract nature.<\/p>\n

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“Interference in Green”<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWith this show,\u201d she says of her current exhibit at the library, \u201cI wanted to bring back the figure and integrate what I have been doing.\u201d Memory is Villareal\u2019s source material, and with paint she explores how ideas and images shift\u2026 how experience is conceived and distorted over time and what is ultimately retained. \u201cWorking from memory; the florals and the figures are what I like best. The first works I did were abstract figures, so I wanted to get away from relying on the figure, allowing for more liberty in thought, of what we think now and what actually was, and how this is processed.\u201d This ubiquitous gestural play of figure and abstraction allows for a liberty of freedom as the duality of flourishing and a suffering in the awareness of being caught, helpless between beauty and truth, authenticity and lies.<\/p>\n

The exhibition title\u2019s reference to efflorescence, the crystallized accumulation of salt crystals on a surface, evokes this sense of what is left behind, a stasis that accumulates from a flowing source that solidifies and hardens, but also blossoms and flourishes. In \u201cRose Fragment,\u201d one of the 12 canvases on exhibit, the concept is brought to fruition with what may be an ethereal beauty. Villareal terms these works \u201cflorals,\u201d and in this work her abstract mark-making explores nuanced shades of pink, orange and red, evoking without ever delineating floral motifs. Blended into this floral motif is a figure, rendered in light strokes, partially crystallized, an apparition, with mouth stifled\u2026 expressing the passing of time, memory, in conflict with an uncertain, current state of awareness, or unawareness.<\/p>\n

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“Phacelua Interference”<\/p><\/div>\n

This is the \u201cinterference\u201d of the \u201cefflorescent.\u201d Villareal makes no attempt to isolate her figures but creates universal meanings, blending her abstract surfaces with the unresolved figure, creating a conflict in a fundamental state of being, a state of experience and one\u2019s own presence of reality. Most tormented of these works may be \u201cPhacelua Interference,\u201d where an enshrouded figure seems to be suffocating, drowning in her own stasis as she is lost, detached, from her conscious, willful self, but falls to an abyss of uncertainty, apathy and anxiety; only her legs are exposed, cradled inward to hide from fear. \u201cThe florals are not allowing the figure to move, she is so deep in thought,\u201d the artist says. \u201cThe florals are louder where the figures are quieter.\u201d<\/p>\n

One can feel the conflict of reality in \u201cInterference in Black,\u201d where the figure has her back to the picture plane, but she also has her back to the ugliness of the world represented by a dark chaotic amorphous matter. She is searching for beauty and truth, authenticity but not lies; the only conflict is that which resides within the personal place of self.<\/p>\n

Being one\u2019s self in one\u2019s social environment is a process of \u201cgetting along.\u201d In life there is no contract to be signed or course to be taken, no uniform or prearranged formal relationships. Yet life\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0a challenge, and the complex nature of our psychological selves, how we construct our idea of the self and the world, through the accumulated memories of our experience, makes it even more challenging, if also, as Villareal expresses in this exhibit, more enriching.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEfflorescent Interference: Paintings by Sarina Villareal,\u201d Library at Gallery Square, Salt Lake City, through Jan. 8, 2016, www.slcpl.org<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Efflorescent Interference, Sarina Villareal\u2019s current exhibit at the Gallery at Library Square, explores the fine balance between the control one has over one\u2019s life and those things out of one\u2019s control, between what can be gained and what can be lost by life in the world. With paintings […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":850,"featured_media":31102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[916,745],"class_list":["post-30995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-gallery-at-library-square","tag-sarina-villareal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Phacelua-Interference.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-22 05:58:07","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/850"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30995"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54299,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30995\/revisions\/54299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}