Appropriation: Stepping into Gonzalo Sojo’s world of abstract urbania

Decorated Argentinian artist exhibits select works in the capital


Our Correspondent November 17, 2016
Sojo’s paintings on display at the show clockwise: Julieta and Alice. PHOTO: PUBLICITY

ISLAMABAD: Owing to a greatly skewed virtual imagery, the word “painting” immediately brings to mind either portraits by artists such as Rembrandt or serene hillside landscapes.

Argentinian artist Gonzalo Sojo, however, paints a contemporary narrative that is more tangible and relatable - urban landscapes in a way that is more abstract realism.

Sojo’s works are currently being exhibited at Satrang Gallery in Islamabad in an exhibition titled Director’s Cut.

Sojo was born in Buenos Aires in 1972 and studied at National Arts College there. He practised at the studios of different artists including Tulio de Sagastizabal, Manuel Esnoz, and Hector Meanay Graciela Paats before going on to establish his own space.

Soon, his work started gaining recognition and he exhibited in and outside Argentina, including Mexico, Luithuania, and the USA. He received numerous awards in Argentina including Manuel Belgrano, Premio Banco Ciudad, Nacional VYP de Pintura and Premio Trenes de Buenos Aires.

“The most important aspect of my art practice is appropriation, which is the main factor in the development of my work,” Sojo says in a statement.

“My passion for painting is also open to the possibility of irony about certain solemn binary relations, such as; paint-transcendence, painting - large art world etc,” he adds.

This is evident in pieces such as Alice which shows Alice from the popular fairy tale Alice in Wonderland walking away with White Rabbit while holding his hands.

With regards to ‘appropriation’, it seems Sojo is quite in love with cubism but has managed to reinvent that in a neo-contemporary style.

His journeyman nature is also evident in his work which makes travels through a series of urban, dystopian landscapes to the high mountains  and down all the way to the beach.

Zahra Khan, the curator for the show, said that “Sojo’s art is beguilingly quirky and playful.”

She adds that Sojo has taken inspiration from the surge of images in our pop culture popular, be it Alice or Maria in the opening sequence of The Sound of Music. “These images have become an an integral part of the fabric of popular media, and the situations or personalities they depict.”

“Sojo’s depictions, however, are solely his own. He uses a palette of vivid colour and the paintings resemble dream-like scenarios, with images and situations overlaid upon and within one another,” she said.

Organised in partnership with the Embassy of Argentina, his exhibition was originally was supposed to have been opened on October 28 but was delayed due to then impending sit-ins and protests by Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

The exhibition will continue till next week.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 18th, 2016.

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