Alana Iturralde at Embajada

Artist: Alana Iturralde

Exhibition title: En busca de placeres (‘In Search of Pleasures’)

Venue: Embajada, San Juan, Puerto Rico

Date: June 26 – August 21, 2021

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Embajada, San Juan

Hey there,
You with the stars
In your eyes love never made
A fool of you

-Audre Lorde

Embajada is pleased to present the exhibition ‘En busca de placeres’ (‘In Search of Pleasures’) from Puerto Rican artist Alana Iturralde. This is the first time that Alana exhibits with the gallery and in Puerto Rico following her return to the island after living in Pennsylvania and London for several years while finishing her post-graduate studies.

In this exhibition, Iturralde presents a selection of new and recent works where she explores and amplifies transformation phenomena that exist between the artisanal poetics of her work and matters of identity. In these works, Alana also wishes to navigate the experiences of joy, happiness, and pleasure, in which pleasure announces itself almost like a question to point towards a search for more complicated notions, as is happiness. This search is manifested throughout the use and presentation of ceramics, textiles, and drawings to reimagine the narrative of her identity through confection and manual labor processes.

In her recent series titled ‘Cícadas’, Alana explores the idea of transformation through the gesture of embroidering motifs over canvas in a repetitive way, creating an unfinished or in-process pattern, opening up an infinite world of interpretation possibilities. Additionally, this idea is explored in the series of five charcoal drawings of landscapes consumed by flames of fire and in her self-portrait painted in red ink. She also presents her two most recent ceramics of this year, made in free-form and detaching itself from the traditional processes, in order to let their poetic energy flow. The work on the pedestal in the center of the room, composed of pieces of ceramics in red and pink tones, reminds us or points us towards a visceral feeling that flourishes from the inside out.

Alana Iturralde Leon lives and works in San Juan. She has a Master’s in Sculpture from the School of Visual Arts in Penn State (2019). In 2017 she received the Emergent Artist Scholarship of the Cisneros Fontanals Foundation for the Arts. Her recent expositions include: Un hecho de diferencias (‘An Incident of Differences’), Ana Mas Projects, Barcelona (2018); Stitch, Beeler Gallery, Columbus College of Art & Design; Punto de Partida (‘Point of Departure’), Ana Mas Projects, San Juan (both in 2017); Manifesto de la fragilidad (‘Manifest of Fragility’) en Detener Continuar, Matadero Madrid (2015); and Colección de LP Siempre en casa (‘Always at Home’), Arsenal de la Marina, San Juan (2012).

Alana Iturralde, En busca de placeres (installation view), 2021, Embajada, San Juan

Alana Iturralde, Untitled, 2021, Cerámica, 19.5 x 8.25 x 3 inches

Alana Iturralde, Untitled, 2019, Tinta sobre tela bordada a mano, 10 x 9.5 inches

Alana Iturralde, En busca de placeres (installation view), 2021, Embajada, San Juan

Alana Iturralde, En busca de placeres, 2021, Tinta sobre papel, 22 x 18.75 inches

Alana Iturralde, Cicadas #2, 2020, embroidered fabric, 36.75 x 20 x 5 inches

Alana Iturralde, En busca de placeres (installation view), 2021, Embajada, San Juan

Alana Iturralde, Cicadas #1, En busca de placeres, 2021, wood, embroidered fabric, 78.5 x 56.30 x 53.5 inches

Alana Iturralde, En busca de placeres (installation view), 2021, Embajada, San Juan

Alana Iturralde, Untitled, 2019, Cerámica, 14.5 x 10.5 x 5.5, inches

Alana Iturralde, En busca de placeres (installation view), 2021, Embajada, San Juan

Alana Iturralde, En busca de placeres, 2021, Carboncillo sobre papel, 24.25 x 19.25 inches