Artists

Ana Roldán

Press release

Salt stores. Rock sediments. Aluminium is extracted from ore. Light is reflected and transmitted. Matter changes its state without disappearing. In her exhibition at annex14, Ana Roldán, born in Mexico in 1977 and based in Zurich, explores such processes of transformation and asks what remains stored within materials, images and signs. Photography, sculpture, language and light come together in a structure in which history, nature and technology do not appear as separate realms, but as different forms of energy and matter. The three works from Roldán’s ongoing series The Prophet follow this same line of thought. Since 2007, the artist has used images from popular media, altering them through colour and geometric forms. The figures are presented less as individual portraits and more as symbols of ideas and forces that continue to resonate beyond their historical moment. Angela Davis and the monumental Olmec head represent very different periods and contexts, yet, they share a sense of presence and permanence. Here, history does not appear as something concluded, but as something that is stored and continues to change. This idea can also be found in the salt sculptures. Salt carries traces of geological processes within it, while also having the capacity to preserve, erode and store energy. Compression and disintegration are therefore closely connected, as are the past and future potential. Similar transitions emerge in Roldán’s vocabulary of terms such as Salt, Energy, Sand, Aluminium, Earth, Ore and Breeze, and Latency. On aluminium panels, these connections become material signs. Rather than describing opposites, they articulate states and possibilities through which matter can continually be reconsidered. Dóra Eötvös