At first elements seem to be distributed without purpose. The sowing is chaotic, scattered, stammering. This is how the ground is prepared and, with insistence, thickness is achieved. Crossing out. Modeling. Scribbling. Squirting. Drawing a sgraffito. Actions have a common denominator: there is no existence without gesture.
Sofía Gallo's sculptures are reproduced with the charming self-confidence of things that advance without asking permission. Guttural and friendly, sometimes also rugged, these pieces manifest their morphology in the process. Without a plan or sketch, the artist's virtue is to put all her energy at the service of the free will of matter.
Sofía comes from painting, large raw canvases that she fills with fast and colorful gestures, unpredictable and rough rhythms, a work very related to the art brut tradition led by Jean Dubuffet in the mid-20th century. Artists who sought in the productions of mental patients, prisoners and children the key to free themselves from intellectual speculation and the academic canons of the time, thus accessing a vitalist art, conscious of creation as a game between life and death. Sofía's body postures when painting - behavior that she would later transfer to her sculptural work - are very similar to those of children: on the floor, without a frame, constantly changing point of view, neglecting conservation aspects, allowing boredom, excitement, anxiety and regrets to take over the course of the image.
The most widely agreed upon hypothesis about the meaning of menhirs - megalithic monuments - is that prehistoric man erected these upright stones, sometimes engraved, like a tombstone to mark a tomb. Mircea Eliade, the Romanian historian of religions, speaks of “cosmic poles”, vertical elements that have the function of establishing a symbolic center, communicating sky-earth and breaking the homogeneity that characterizes profane space. Surrounded by her materials, chaotically and untimely, but somehow marked by repetition, Sofía emulates over and over again the protocols of a creation ritual and thus re-actualizes the myth of origin. What comes into the world are these pieces that are difficult to name - in fact, her works do not usually have titles - but not at all indifferent. With their skin covered in writings and enamels, as bright as they are unexpected, they resemble palpitating beings.
Today located in the garden of the MAP - “José Hernández” Folk Art Museum -, surrounded by ceibo trees, tipas and Adán's ribs, they offer us a tactile walk. They are able to change their structure, they bravely explore how to grow and multiply.
Verónica Gómez
September 2023