Chromatic Imaginings: Julio Llerena introduces emerging artist Cecilia Jura – By Julio Llerena

Cecilia Jurado doesn’t resign herself to just looking. She knows that beyond the obscene materiality of things there exists a world she needs to explore.

Chromatic Imaginings: Julio Llerena introduces emerging artist Cecilia Jura

By Julio Llerena (Editor of "SpanishVogue")

 

 

 

 

 

Cecilia Jurado doesn’t resign herself to just looking. She knows that beyond the obscene materiality of things there exists a world she needs to explore. She knows no more, but this is enough. Is it possible that a square piece of sky may transform into a concrete wall? Is it possible that the image of the sea may look more like a Rothko painting than like a landscape seen one time too many?

Her camera acts as the shortcut to a reality that is difficult to verify. She uses the medium of photography as a journalistic tool, with a commitment to understanding the truth underlying all of her investigations. Jurado points to her subject, but instead of shooting she asks herself questions, instead of portraying and assuming her work is done with a shot, she remains contemplating. Like the person watching a marathon and waiting for the anonymous, fascinating, unique face of the last runner, Jurado has her camera poised in anticipation of action.

Cecilia Jurado converses with light as an interrogation of a fundamental assumption: we see only what we can see. Her lens melts the boundaries between reality and illusion: a white wall transforms into color, a cloud into emptiness, a beam of light feeds itself. Then, a recognizable, visual language appears before our eyes, narrating stories that we can interpret and understand; these are timeless stories of anguish, pain, and the celebration of human limitations and contradictions.