Ana Elena Garuz

Ana Elena Garuz’s practice examines the aesthetic and poetic possibilities of abstraction to find a new relationship between material, form, and space. This is Garuz’s first solo presentation in the US. Garuz deconstructs elements in the world, exploring their two-dimensional and sculptural possibilities through painting and drawing. Garuz submits the everyday matter – related to her daily life – to a rigorous process of classification, recombination, and interpretation. Dissected geometry, patterns, textures, folds and wrinkles create an inventory of fragments that make up her own lexicon.

For Fragments of Belief and Disbelief, Garuz responds to the daily onslaught of imagery in contemporary society by isolating and extracting visual forms from pictorial magazine pages. What happens when you focus on specific moments and remove them from the full context, the artist asks. The act of dissecting, classifying and organizing details reveals new juxtapositions and associations that instigate a shift in perception. Using the intimate and arduous process of drawing as an observation tool, Garuz engages in an exercise of typological theorizing.

Ana Elena Garuz (b. 1971 Panamá) appeared on Panama’s arts scene in the mid-1990s before moving to the US to study. She graduated with a BFA from the Savannah College of Art in 1993 and with an MFA at NYU in 1995, returning to Panamá where she currently lives and works. Garuz has been widely exhibited locally in Panamá over the years in group exhibitions in institutions such as the Panama Art Biennial, the Museo de Contemporáneo if Panamá, Centro Cultural de Municipalidad de Miraflore, among many others. She has also been featured internationally in galleries including Galería CAF, La Paz (2022), Galería Lucy García, Santo Domingo (2021), Proxyco, New York (2018), Machete Galeria, Mexico (2017), Museo de Arte Moderono, Santo Domingo (2014). Most recently Garuz had a solo exhibition at Diabo Rosso gallery in Panamá.

—Manuela Paz