Mayte Vieta

‘the transparent look’

Galeria Maior – Palma

Levity. Weightlessness, lightness, inconsistency, fragility, limpness, weakness, negligible, apparent, illusory, unreal, miniscule, imperceptible, intangible, fantastic, chimeric, inexistent, immaterial, abstract, mild, tenuous, impalpable, indistinct, concealed, lurking, hidden, secret, covered, mysterious, masked, imperceptible, miniscule, insignificant. Invisibility. Unreality, illusion, appearance, disembodiment, transparency, translucence, against the light, fantasy, unreality, immateriality, abstraction, levity, concealment, secret, cover-up, insignificance, trivial.

The exhibition “The transparent look”, comprises the most recent works of Mayte Vieta, put together specifically for the Maior Gallery in Palma. Words and time are the main characters in this exhibition, the artist is inspired through her four year old son, his everyday games are mixed into the preparation of the pieces as they inspired her to give them shape and strength. The viewer will see the piece “bambi” 2011, a bronze sculpture in the shape of a fawn skating in the deep black, over a bevelled, oval mirror that is placed on the gallery floor in such a way as to mark a space within a space, the reflection gives one the sensation of an opening in the floor, placing the figure in the middle, reflecting its balance over emptiness in the oval mirror.
On the right wall, at the back of the gallery hangs the panoramic photo “the hug of nature” 2011, taken in Scotland. A tree raises out of the middle of a swamp, a romantic landscape, one’s gaze is drawn to the presence of the tree, coming up out of the lake’s water. The landscape escapes, the precise moment rescued from time, it’s like the first meeting, before the place, as the name implies, hugs nature. In the same area on the right wall hangs “glacier” 2011, a photograph of a fragment of a glacier that is part of a series of four photographs taken during a trip to Argentina in 2001. I have always been interested in capturing time, that instant through photography is magical, the power to rescue that moment and evoke memories and absences. In this photograph I was interested in highlighting the texture of the ice, its cracks and tonalities, the light projected upon the surface highlights the coldness of the ice that has no limits, no horizon, and the glacier along with its cracks and reliefs faces infinity. The sensation of tension from an imprisoned fragment, in the centre of the image, the word HEAT is camouflaged in the glaciers texture. Through a gaze, the image of the ice itself is opposed to the word HEAT.
The series “my small garden” 2011. Two snapshots of a cherry tree in my garden and two small light boxes make up a series that I put together over some years during the different seasons, in three of them the cherry tree that was part of my life can be seen, in two different stages of blossom, thanks to photography, the act of capturing the precise moment is magical, it is a gift to be able to capture those unique, evanescent moments. Two of them show the cherry tree in blossom during the spring of 2005 “my little garden” ref. 3 and 5, but in two different stages of blossom.
It was the last bloom as the tree died after the summer of 2006, “my little garden” ref.2 (light box) is a snapshot taken after a storm in the summer of 2006, next to it “my little garden” ref. 1 is a snapshot where one can perceive children’s play items scattered across the garden after a summer shower, just before dark, the light after the storm, the end of a day.
My grandfather planted the cherry tree and it will remain in my family’s memory, but we will never again enjoy its presence. Memories and the passing of time, a unique time. 
In the small hall in the gallery you can see the installation “mirrors” 2011 made up of 25 small mirrors that are placed so has to take up the whole wall space in the small hall. In the centre of each mirror, the artist has very subtly handwritten the words “I love you” in 25 different languages. The viewer perceives the words when approaching the installation, when getting close to read the words they mix with the viewer’s own reflection, the viewer can then become involved in a search, as the same word is represented in 25 different languages, a dialogue of reflections and words is created through the viewer’s gaze.