The pride of absence.
Judith Vizcarra

From 13th March until 11th May 2008

Under the title The pride of absence, photographer Judith Vizcarra from Mollet exhibits the transformation of a women’s outer body, imposed due to an illness, cancer, and an operation, the mastectomy. This change also causes an internal mutilation that only a woman could fathom and understand.

This artistic project aims at showing the internal beauty of the models through photography. The project originates from an encounter between the photographer and Montserrat Rovira, affected by a mastectomy. This project grows as more people with the same illness add to it, turning it into work in progress.

Throughout the history of art the image of women has been dealt with in an array of ways aimed at satisfying a man’s vision. In order to achieve its objective, images of masculine fantasies were created, always linked to the idea of feminine beauty, the young woman incorruptible by the passing of time.

Feeding off references introduced by Frida Kahlo, and at the same time reinterpreted by Jo Spence and Hanna Wilke, artists who expressed their own physical deterioration as a result of illness in their works, we can see how Vizcarra expresses the feelings of others in these processes. They all go beyond an image to offer an insight into their souls and a journey through those difficult times.

This exhibition discovers how beauty and eroticism are more related to life than to beauty standards imposed by tradition and the treatment of femininity. It shows the beauty of bodies on which you can see the footprints of their experiences, specifically the illness overcome.

Both for the models participating and for the artist’s vision, the exhibition exemplifies the feminine essence of women’s courage and the sensitivity of a woman to capture this by means of images. The artist draws us towards the beauty, strength and intimate pain of women who have overcome the mutilation of their image and their souls, in order to continue on their journeys. These works allow us to look with intention and explore inside these bodies that reject victicism and reflect the harshest physical reality in order to see the most profound beauty, the beauty of one’s soul.