'Superland': Verónica Palmieri and her journey between the dreamlike and the autobiographical

For the first time at the Tramo gallery, the artist Verónica Palmieri displays her inner world in a solo exhibition entitled Supertierra , which brings together a group of surrealist-style works, curated by Melisa Boratyn and Rosario Villani.

The exhibition's title alludes to an extrasolar planet with a greater mass than Earth , hypothetically habitable but still unattainable. For the artist, it is also " a parallel reality governed by nonlinear time," a space where the living and the dead, the tangible and the dreamlike, the autobiographical and the universal coexist.

This duality sets the tone for a show based on a dark and intense palette , with a multitude of earth tones, in scenes permeated by poetic strangeness: tiny horses, dogs, angels, women, chickens, trees that appear to have fur or veins, mysterious interiors, and skies that merge with water.

“Each painting takes place in a different setting but they are part of the same symbolic universe and share the same atmosphere,” he tells Clarín .

“I try not to analyze or understand the image I have in mind, nor to search for meaning. When I begin painting, the main exercise is not to tie myself to that idea and let the painting guide me . I let what needs to happen happen, and let what needs to appear appear. Painting has a power and determination that I don't have; it's a state similar to meditation, of observation and communion,” he says.

Palmieri works with the time imposed by his inner life , without haste, as curator Melisa Boratyn points out to define the way in which Palmieri's work enchants, forms and transforms.

These paintings "materialize ideas, dreams, and questions that have taken on a new dimension in recent years and reveal the multiple layers, folds, symbols, and interpretations of his work," he writes in the curatorial text.

The compositions leave behind real spaces to open up to impossible geographies . In Palmieri's words, "We don't know if the stars are reflected in the water or if the sky and the sea have reversed places."

Seashells, sea creatures, dogs, angels, peacocks, chickens and human figures coexist with nature in pristine and mysterious interiors, some more realistic and others definitely dreamlike , in the artist's disturbing compositions.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1974, Palmieri trained at the Prilidiano Pueyrredón National School of Fine Arts and traveled a long path between fashion illustration, drawing as a craft and finally painting .

She lived in London, where she began to support herself professionally as an illustrator, but it wasn't until her return to Argentina in 2004 that painting began to take center stage in her practice. In 2003, she met musician Palo Pandolfo , with whom she shared a life steeped in art until his sudden death in 2021.

In works like "The Wedding," Palmieri allows his life story to be present . In this way, the exhibition brings together recent works that engage with his life. He once questioned whether it was right to show so much, but he understood that the personal is also part of the whole.

“Once they're painted, all I have left is the courage to accompany them, even though they often expose my privacy,” she confesses.

There's a sense of transition and transformation in many of these works , but also of romance with life, adventure, and discovery. In one painting, a female figure reclines beneath a waterfall made of hair, plays a guitar, and receives a white egg from a tree whose roots cling tightly to the earth.

The passage into the dreamlike marks a departure from his previous exhibition at the Machete gallery in Mexico City, where the interiors still offered clues to the everyday. Now, the settings are exuberant, suspended in a timeless time with no coordinates, with its own rules.

“The transition happened naturally,” says the artist. “It corresponds to the need to represent what has been happening to me recently, and like any new process, it relies on new forms.”

In this new phase, there was also a change in the palette : the latest works, "Tree" and "Double," burst forth with more vibrant colors, as a sign that a new phase was dawning, "which gives me optimism for what's to come," says Palmieri.

And she says: “I often have the impression that, even though I am the one holding the brush, the paintings paint themselves .”

The Supertierra exhibition will be open until May 28 at the Tramo Gallery (formerly Smart Gallery), Avenida Alvear 1580, ground floor, Monday through Friday from 2:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., with free admission.