Barrio Escalante, San José

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Mi Secreto, by Vernor Gallardo. Two vermilion manes billow toward the outer edges like vegetal wings, anchoring the symmetry of a silent dialogue.

Vernor Gallardo

Mi SecretoInquire about availability

Year
2014
Technique
Oil/Canvas
Dimensions
1 115 × 204 cm
Status
Inquire about availability
Palette
carmine red, burgundy, pistachio green, cerulean blue, ivory white, orange
Brushwork
Modulated impasto with scrapings and firm black contour drawing delimiting vibrant chromatic planes

Curatorial analysis

Two vermilion manes billow toward the outer edges like vegetal wings, anchoring the symmetry of a silent dialogue. Facing each other, two women share an intense red surface that commands the lower half of the plane; upon it, the white of a bird cradled with delicacy functions as the visual and conceptual pivot of the entire scene. The elongated hands of the figure clad in pistachio green do not trap the creature, but rather offer or guard it at a suspended point between both presences.

This dove, along with the open pages of a solitary book on the table, encodes the nature of the enigma. The volume of the bodies is resolved through deliberate dark outlines reminiscent of stained glass or graphic fresco, where forms remain strictly circumscribed yet vibrate internally through subtle scraped textures and porous impasto. While the woman on the left leans forward in an almost liturgical gesture of surrender, her counterpart, dressed in a striped blue sweater, receives the confidence with a piercing gaze and a resting hand held in attentive ease.

The neutral, luminous background, worked with a broken texture simulating lime or plaster, detaches the encounter from any specific temporal coordinates. Above, branches laden with ripe oranges frame the composition in a reference to an intimate orchard, to fertility, and to the enclosed sanctuary of a shared secret. The proximity of the faces, which resemble variations of a single psychic identity, opens up the reading of an internal unfolding: rather than two distinct beings in conversation, the canvas suggests that moment in which memory and conscience negotiate the custody of something fragile and unspeakable.

Mi Secreto

More works by Vernor Gallardo

16 works

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