On October 5, the exhibition “Jardín de Venus” opened with 36 works from the series Diosas en Eclosión by the Costa Rican artist Daniela Martén, at Galería Matices, the artistic space of the Costa Rica Country Club. The artist, through her works, wishes to bring harmony with Mother Earth through the symbolic representation of the cosmic egg and its relationship with the origin of our humanity.
The art historian Marta Rosa Cardoso Ferrer has referred to this series of works by the artist as a pictorial interpretation of the origin of creation, of the primordial energy, of the diverse Nature that made and makes possible the complexity of the planetary ecosystem. In the direct words of the historian “they are an invocation to respect for Mother Earth who, through her multiple forms, provides material and spiritual nourishment to humanity, beyond imposed territorialities and differentiations.”
Made with inks, pigments, charcoal, clay and sand on raw fabric and cotton paper. Some of the goddesses have been at the Pi Art Art Festival in Punta Islita, at Galería Cuarto37 in Santa Ana, and also recently at the Cultural Center of Spain in Costa Rica, for their dialogue with nature, femininity and power.
This series makes an iconic recovery of ancestral signs, evoking a matrifocal era as the first form of social organization and dignifying the displaced and attacked woman, repeatedly alluded to and underestimated from the patriarchal vision of her genitality.
They are also a reference to the multiple forms of violence to which Women and Nature are subjected, showing the confrontation of antagonistic opposites that strive for balance: life and death, confinement and freedom, containment and strength, vulnerability and resistance as a way of making visible the resilience and the inescapable regenerative potential of the great cosmic womb on which we depend to exist.The exhibition will be available and open to the public throughout October and November 2023.
More about the concept in the artist’s words in her own words:
“A need arises in me to appeal to our lost psychic heritage and rescue a mythical level of consciousness, releasing images from the depths of our ancestral collective consciousness. One of them is the image of the Goddess”.
“The cult of goddesses has been observed since the Paleolithic era and was maintained very strongly for thousands of decades in primitive agricultural societies”.
“The excavated female figurines as a key point of my interpretation. These prehistoric and matrifocal cultures that predominated in many geographical points around the world were peaceful societies, respectful of the land, and honored maternal wisdom. They existed in harmony with each other and with nature for most of human existence, they were the creators of the foundations of human culture”.
“A later patriarchal, nomadic and warrior stage was imposed through the Indo-Aryan migratory waves that began to arrive in Europe from 4500 BC. It came to set the model that continued to be reproduced for the last 5000 years in Europe and later America with colonization”.
“The orbs are symbols that invoke the return of the Goddesses of our prehistory, they contain the miracle of creation, birth and the power to transform reality and death into life through the mysterious and cyclical regeneration of nature. The unity of all things in nature, personified by the Goddess, the primordial energy, the power that governs the universe, the divine Mother who gives life and provides material and spiritual nourishment, and who in death takes us back to the womb cosmic”.
“I turn to the ritual of making and displaying the hatching Goddesses, seeking solace, release and manifestation. Regain control and direct energy for change. A ritual is something we do in addition to a space we inhabit; In the ritual we connect with ourselves, our personal truths and greater truths”.
“I use this narrative by drawing on a femininity and an ancestral somatic impulse that refers to Anasyrma (the ancestral ritual act of displaying female genitalia) by showing the Goddesses hatching in the cosmic womb, as a shield, affirmation, an invocation to rebirth, an act to affirm that another world is possible and thus claim it”.
More about the artist
Daniela Martén is a Costa Rican artist, graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Costa Rica and independently trained with Joaquín Rodríguez del Paso, Nelly Eyo and Nela Salgado.
This year she was the artist chosen by the international brand H&M to inaugurate the H&M Home stores with her mural dedicated to Costa Rican tropicality. In 2022 she won the first prize at the CROMA Biennial, was a participant in the National Salon at the Museum of Costa Rican Art and The Cutting Garden at the Room57 gallery in New York. She has also exhibited at the Cultural Center of Spain in Costa Rica and the Regional Museum of San Ramón and has participated in several exhibitions curated at Klaus Steinmetz Contemporary and several national auctions.
Currently, she is part of the co-management Vamos Pintar, an initiative to make living women painters visible and manages the independent artist studio space Amante Art Lab. She examines forms from nature, especially flowers and their relationship with the erotic and creative energy, using colors, layers and attacks on the canvas. Her work explores feminist themes approached from sexuality, agency and forms of oppression. Her website is: http://www.danielamarten.com/
More information: [email protected] | +1 516 989 3113
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