For some time, Gustavo Emé has familiarized us with an aesthetic that makes his work recognizable: The repetition of patterns, a clear pre-Hispanic reminiscence, the cartographic layout and Lima as the axis, characteristics that are leitmotiv in his artistic proposal. On this occasion he continues down the same path, but today he reveals something that goes beyond the ludic, critical and ironic aspects of his previous work, something that “Animal: 7 districts” (2014 exhibition) already anticipated: A kind of cathartic exercise that hides interior unknowns in which the artist has pending to delve into.

Starting from Peruvian references such as Fernando de Szyszlo and Elena Izcue, whose interest in pre-Hispanic themes he admires from different techniques, and from the work of Colombian Nadín Ospina, whose pop aesthetic also feeds on the pre-Hispanic with a clearly playful tone. and critical at the same time; Emé has generated a work influenced by elements of his generation: videogames and technology, being the practicality for reproduction offered by technological applications (which initially seduced him), which guides his reflection on the artist's manual/craft work . Thus, remembering the maps he made as a child, in which he recreated cities, continents and ideal worlds, as a form of escape, he now re/creates the districts of Lima.

“LI-43” is the name of his sixth individual exhibition, in which he brings together drawings made between 2016 and 2018 and that represent Lima and its districts. It takes as a reference the postal codes to name them and places in the title the number of the order in which each one was elaborated, obeying this to the affinity and knowledge that Emé feels and has for a certain place. Recognizable elements of each area (such as monuments, squares, cemeteries or significant dates), are mixed with surreal details, with quotes that tell of experiences lived in the place or with simple words that emerged automatically and unconsciously, all this in an effort to portray that “ideal” district.

The drawing, in all its splendor, stars in this selection and is the perfect pretext for the cathartic wave that the manual exercise facilitates, it is the means for reflection, where the obsessive repetition of graphics and written speech (automated and meaningless) , they become in response to an unconscious internal exploration.

“Lima is a difficult city”, Gustavo Emé tells us, but it is no longer just about the city and its problems, there is more behind it, experiences that mark the artist, that make that city chaos unconsciously transform into a reflection of his interiority. Instinct, fear, gratitude, melancholy, indignation, everything is combined in an obsessive distribution of images and text that outline, without perhaps intending it, a clearly intimate proposal.

This new series presents works of different formats, made on paper and made with pencil, ink and colorpic, a technical variety that allows the artist to achieve effects and textures that perfectly complement the visual vibration generated by the text. Suspended works, mounted in an unconventional way, modular elements that can vary in location thanks to the intervention of the observer.

The artist matures and his work with him, his methodical character and apparent calm explode on paper, the carelessness of his first drawings is transformed into an obsessive and planned order. The healing and relaxing effect of manual exercise make his work a sampler for the viewer to experience, reflect on and build.

Far from rhetorical curatorial speeches, I invite you to ask yourself: In which city do you “live”?


By Silvana Vargas-Machuca Barrantes.