New York-based Colombian artist María Berrío builds watercolor painting and Japanese paper collage into layered pictorial architectures where myths and folktales merge with contemporary experiences of adversity, resilience, despair and triumph. For ‘Soliloquy of the Wounded Earth,’ her debut solo presentation with Hauser & Wirth, she will unveil new large-scale works on canvas that portray imaginary environments, characters and strange narratives that nevertheless invoke a sense of déjà vu in the viewer. Textured and dense, her paintings, evoke societies in states of flux and evolution—realms where everyday minutiae signal the inextricability of the present from history, memory and tradition.
With its amalgam of painting and precise yet gestural collage, Berrío’s process echoes the structure of oral storytelling. Like folktales that are reshaped each time they are recounted, her compositions grow through accretion; each layer is another narrative element, achieved through the tearing and cutting of handmade paper into fragments. Often life-size in scale, Berrío’s subjects meet the viewer eye-to-eye, inviting entry into their luminous, densely textured and uniquely abstracted worlds.
Among the works on view in ‘Soliloquy of the Wounded Earth’ is a series of three full-length vertical portraits: Berrío’s reimagining of the myth of the three Moirai (the Greek Fates), a theme that has captivated artists for centuries. Here, she charges this classical narrative with cultural specificity by recasting the fabled arbiters of destiny as Colombian Cumbia dancers in vividly colored and decorated voluminous skirts. Each Fate swirls or unfurls an iridescent blue ribbon, symbolizing the delicate thread of life that they famously spin, measure and sever. (official exhibition text)
María Berrío. Soliloquy of the Wounded Earth / Hauser & Wirth New York 22nd Street. September 4, 2025.
