Carlos Quintana
26.7 x 17.1 x 17.1 cm
Further images
Carlos Quintana's "Untitled" ceramic sculpture interrogates the stratified psyche through a totemic stacking of human heads, where the azure-glazed superior form—its surface crazed like fractured ice, mouth agape in silent exclamation—perches atop a pallid, wounded base etched with visceral smears of ochre and crimson, evoking the eruption of suppressed anguish from subterranean layers of consciousness. This vertical dialectic disrupts monolithic notions of selfhood, symbolizing the precarious overlay of rational facade upon primal turmoil, where the upper head's ethereal detachment confronts the lower's raw vulnerability, probing themes of psychic bifurcation and cultural amnesia in a post-colonial framework. Extending conceptually to motifs of hybrid resilience, the assemblage posits identity as an unstable edifice, where ceramic fragility mirrors the alchemical tension between disintegration and defiant coalescence, challenging viewers to unearth the unspoken dialogues between elevation and erosion within the human condition.
Provenance
Carlos Quintana StudioExhibitions
“The Diamond’s Shadow” (solo exhibition), Pan American Art Projects, Miami, Florida, United States, September 21 – November 16, 2019 (Featured multiple works from the 2018 Untitled ceramic heads series alongside paintings.)
“In Finito” (solo exhibition), Palazzo Loredan, Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Venice, Italy, May 11 – July 29, 2019
Literature
“Carlos Quintana – Selected Works,” : page 298