Gisela Torres

Looking for Edmonia (Self-Portrait) proposes an uncanny dialogue with the 19th century mixed race American sculptress Mary Edmonia Lewis; the first woman of African and Native American heritage to achieve international fame and recognition in the fine arts world.

In her multifaceted self-portraiture study, Torres engages with traditional and emerging art media to build narratives via materiality and processes; a series of expired black and white 5x4 polaroids evolve into monochrome and colour acetate prints, monochrome photopolymer prints and monochrome photographic images printed on white marble fragments for the series Conjure, a self-portrait plaster cast transforms into triptych light-boxes made from marble fragments and monochrome acetates titled Subsume Illuminations, a 3D mapping film, Reverie and Slumber, where Torres's voice is heard singing a rendition of Peggy Lee's 'Is This All There Is?' and a framed marble photographic print 'I dreamt of you last night' in Lewis’s material of choice - white Italian marble.

As an American female artist of Afro-Cuban heritage, Torres finds a muse in Lewis. Parallels clearly exist relating to creative ambition and living and working in Italy, however, it was the shock of discovering that Lewis’s unmarked grave was found in London at Kensal Rise cemetery, in the vicinity of where Torres once lived, that propelled a sort of psychic connection. A strong desire to 'channel' Lewis and query her success and eventual fate became the catalyst for the project.

Conjure Grid, Polaroid Type 55

Reverie and Slumber, 3D Print Projection Video w/ sound

Peckham 24 Photography Open Call Winner, Installation View, Copeland Gallery, London, 2022

Reverie and Slumber installation view, The Pleasure of Text exhibition, MBAL, Le Locle, Neuchatel, Switzerland, 2023