Sol Halabi

Artist Statement

“I recall my grandma telling me what an angel was. I was very little, but I was already aware that one should be good in order to reach Heaven. I knew, then, that the angels were there since always, and they need not earn any merits or make any efforts to reach It. It seemed to me awfully unfair. At that point, the questions began. What were we here for? Was it only a game that someone was watching? Did we have to overcome certain things in order to reach others? I remember the feeling of the ludicrous, of the complete lack of a reason for being alive. Later I understood that one grows up, one begins to walk and to find what would give some sense to it. But when we remain all alone at night, in that moment, just before falling asleep, when the everyday things are a little far away as well as the net of justifications for keeping on waking up, reasons disappear again. And one is there, sad and lonely. At those quiet moments, some things reveal themselves to me as fictitious. Those moments account for my intimate matters, the first I remember of, all parts of no solution at all, all parts of the same question. There is where my painting justifies itself."

Serene faces, enlightened figures in actual or mental spaces, matter and graphics over lapped in thick weaves that lean on who is watching. "They are not aesthetics games. I know that if I move someone with my painting, I do it in a deep level, which has to do not only with the shapes and colours. I believe in a spirit and in a soul, and I believe that we communicate from there. We do not need only of a religion because we have our own resources, and this is one of them."

The value of a piece of work does not lie in being beautiful, or surprising, or genial-the artist says- but in the psychic process that begins when it is looked at; in the associations, feelings, images and intimate matters that arise within the observer. "I think that what impacts the people of a piece of work is not the carefulness of the technique, not even what has to do with me, but a notion that we all have, a deep question about the absurd of being. We share an unconscious, an ultimate sensation, and when one works freely, that background shows up, that collective substrate where our individuality lies. A lot of painting is done trying to make it in the most perfect way, telling the other exactly what he is seeing and what he has to see. I believe in the imperfection of painting, in the errors, in the footprints of what is not there, of what is unfinished. That is the space where the other comes in, where the message opens up and allows the search of senses of our own."

That the painting has a life of its own, that the artists are much less interesting. Sol Halabi resists the self-referential discourse with the same arguments that advocates the painting as a complete language, of multiple resources to involve intellectual, intuitive, perception and motion capabilities. Conscious and unconscious, matter and spirit. Her materials and recurrent subjects share prominence in images and situations. Water, symbols, baby faces, ageless beings. Beeswax, and tar. Backgrounds where she can exploit the ultimate reason. "I enter the workshop and I do not think of anything else. It is freed space and time to do what I feel like doing, everything counts, and that that is generated is very strong. The image asks for, and what begins to appear, the relationship with the piece of work, is stronger than what I want to do. Each painting is a story. I can not make several at the same time, and each one absorbs me entirely. Until it is finished. And then, happiness is such, so plentiful, that I start dancing on my own". Celina Alberto

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Born

         1977, Cordoba, Argentina

Education

         1988, Specialist Designer. National College Monserrat,
              National University of Cordoba, Agentina
         2000, Professor of Fine Arts, Figueroa Alcorta School
              of Arts, Cordoba, Argentina
         2002, Licentiate of Painting, National University of Cordoba,
              Cordoba, Argentina

Exhibitions:

         2007: A Muse Gallery, Columbia, OH
                   Solo Show, Allegro Gallery, Panama
                   EDESA Award, National Salon of Salta, Argentina
                   SOFA 07, Chicago, IL
                   SOFA 07, New York, NY
                   New York Academy of Art, New York, NY
                   Zurbarán Gallery, Buenos Aires
                   Solo Exhibition, Maria Kravetz Gallery, Cordoba, Argentina

         2006: Contemporary Art Center Chateau Carreras
                   SOFA 06, Chicago, IL
                   Selected for the MOIAA Auction 06, Los Angeles, CA
                   SOFA 06, New York, NY
                   Caraffa Museum. Foundation OSDE Salon, Cordoba, Argentina
                   Art Miami 06, Miami, FL
                   Group Exhibition, Zurbaran Gallery, Cordoba, Argentina
                   Solo Exhibition, Maria Kravetz Gallery, Cordoba, Argentina

         2005: SOFA 05, Chicago, IL
                   Art Miami 06, Miami, FL
                   Caraffa Museum. Foundation OSDE Salon, Cordoba, Argentina
                   National Salon 2005, Palais de Glace, Buenos Aires, Argentina
                   Group Exhibition, Zurbaran Gallery, Cordoba, Argentina
                   Solo Exhibition, Maria Kravetz Gallery, Cordoba, Argentina

         2004: Solo Exhibition, Cerrito Art Gallery, Cordoba, Argentina
                   Solo Show, Allegro Gallery, Panama
                   SOFA 04, New York, NY
                   Latin Art, Cultural Center, Ettenheim, Germany
                   Art Miami 04, Miami, FL

         2003: Solo Exhibition, Historic Chapter, Cordoba, Argentina
                   Contemporary Art Center, Cordoba, Argentina
                   IV International Art Fair, “Arte Cordoba 003”, Cordoba, Argentina

         2002: Solo Exhibition, La Casona, Cordoba, Argentina
                   "Contemporary Artists of Cordoba" Capital Federal, Argentina
                   Group Exhibition, “BienalArte”, Cordoba, Argentina

         2001: XVIII Provincial Salon A.P.A.C. Cordoba, Argentina
                   XXV National Salon Villa Constitucion, Sante Fe, Argentina
                   VI Provincial Salon C.A.C. Cordoba, Argentina

         2000: V Provincial Salon C.A.C. Cordoba, Argentina
                   XII National Salon “Bonfigiglioli Museum”, Cordoba, Argentina

         1999: IV Salon C.A.C. Cordoba, Argentina
                   Cultural Center San Martin, Capital Federal, Buenos Aires, Argentina
                   First Prize Rizzuto Salon, Cordoba, Argentina

Permanent Collections:

         Government of the Province of Cordoba Collection, Cordoba, Argentina
         Bonfiglioli Museum, Villa Maria, Cordoba, Argentina
         Argentine Chamber of Construction Collection, Cordoba, Argentina
         Private Collections in Latin American countries, the United States,
                  and Europe

*Bella Vista Art Gallery exclusively represents Sol Halabi’s paintings in North Carolina