Maria Vernet     

“A Self-Revelation” features a series of portraits in women’s painting beyond stereotypes. A theme connected with the everyday, personal and real. Maria Vernet shows us with empathy and sorority different close realities that banish the difference; presence and diversity transcend borders with particular gazes that move the viewer.

Immigration, gender change, the approach to beauty as an established canon, the struggle for equality, pregnancy in covid-19, adolescence and motherhood, old age, life and death are themes that appear in the portraits of the protagonists, specially chosen. The paintings denote an admiration for these women, without nostalgia and with the passion of the first encounter between matter and metaphysics. Thus, a transcendence is born that evokes the struggle for the active and protagonist visibility of women, without reducing their gaze only when they are seen. Women do not only appear as portrayed, they are part of an active look that gives visibility, emphasizes people, knowledge, cultural and gender references based on the revaluation of their own identity and subjectivity.

The series of figurative paintings, acrylic on canvas, soft and vibrant colors at the same time, painted by Maria Vernet during 2020 and 2021, show a bright painting, but also a struggle of struggles in a personal and joyful way, thus emphasizing the dignity and hope as part of the inner strength that often cannot be represented, but which successfully evokes the protagonists. The author portrays hope as something more than an illusion; as a necessity and a freedom. At the same time, the depth of the eyes reminds us of art and femininity as a space of resistance that constructs stories that illustrate other ways of being and interrelating, and that contribute to social transformation.

maria vernet 1M, november 2021