Southern reflections in painted light: a photography exhibition explores Latin American identity through a fanfare of uncommon portraits.

• Author: Sagredo, Javier

Built on the looks on people's faces, some anguished, some full of hope, some defiant, proud, or fearful, our exhibition, Somos Personas (We Are People), is built on realities that speak of powerlessness, insecurity about the future, the harshness of our miseries, of democratic and devastating death, of the weight of our ancient inheritance. Yet there is still space left for life that trickles through crevices of hope, with winks of accumulated passion, remnants of innocence, and that sweet capacity to be surprised, preserved from the time of our childhood.

We sought to examine fundamental aspects of the dignity of the Latin American people and reveal their difficult and fascinating daily reality. We hoped to capture the strength and passion, the tension of that reality, and to pierce the hearts of those who, from the distance of the cold, grey, and treacherous North might be inclined to forget about the breath and heartbeat of the South.

The combination of two very different techniques--photography and silk screen-yields a natural magic that allows a fluid immersion into a space that explores how an image and its background can be taken apart and put back together again with unexpected results. Reality is captured, inverted, reflected through the lens, suddenly transformed into zeros and ones, and then returned to the page, revealing a sober photolithograph, transparent and truthful. Thanks to a surprising alchemy on silk, this is a space of freedom bathed in a stream of color that soaks the paper. And the paper, like Narcissus, drinks it in, thirsty for history, thirsty to be looked at, thirsty for absurd permanency. Photography brings it to life again and transforms colors, forms, and moments once again into binary reality, ready to reengage endlessly in the cycle.

The photographs here reveal more than a common thread--but an underground current of committed humanist flow, a logical consistency that accompanies us through images where light and color present themselves with moderation and certainty. Each photograph is a witness to personal encounter, tender...