Carolina Aguirre

Carolina Aguirre (b.1990, Chile) is an Argentinean artist based in London. Carolina graduated with a BA (First Class Honours) in Graphic Design from Central Saint Martins and worked in the film industry before transitioning into an interdisciplinary art practice and completing an MA at the Royal College of Art. She is a recipient of the Ali H. Alkazzi Scholarship Award (2021-2023) and the 2022 Kyoto City University of the Arts exchange programme. She has exhibited at Palmer Gallery (London), Thaddaeus Ropac (London), Lismore Castle Arts (Cork), Royal Academy of Arts (London), Fold Gallery (London), and Guts Gallery (London) among others. Upcoming projects for 2024 include a solo presentation with Ruttowski;68 (Paris). Carolina Aguirre’s mythopoetic works question the experience of belonging as it relates to location, nature, and otherness. Belonging is chosen as an embodied and emotional access point to wider themes of environmentalism and identity politics resulting from mobility. The interdisciplinary practice spans painting, installation, sculpture and performance. The painting process, which forms the foundation of the practice, is both archeological and psychoanalytical. On the floor, the painting becomes an environment which is watered, dug, impressed upon and walked around. Attention is given to the quality of natural materials; the mineral sheen of sumi ink, the bodily gloss of shellac, the smokiness of charcoal. Mythical, instinctual, and ambiguous, the paintings tread the line between abstraction and figuration. From afar the works could be aerial landscapes; land as seen from a flight home, or browsed longingly on google maps. They could also be close ups of rock or cross-sections of geological phenomena. Distances and borders are blurred. Body imprints allow for an even closer physical relationship between painting and artist. The imprints are reimagined so that the body disintegrates, expands or transforms. Paintings like ‘Strata’ (2024) or ‘Safe Sediment’ (2024) imagine the body in post-life or post-human futures, whereas ‘I said rock’ (2024), titled after the song Sinnerman as sung by Nina Simone, is a yearning for in-life redemption from the non-human world. In the studio, the imprint leaves a mark on the body, a ‘mancha’, which is documented. The sculptural and installation based work follows a similar use of natural materials and blurring of boundaries. Materials used include earth, hair, human ashes, grass, metal and wood pulp. Most recently, immersive installation ‘Remember, member, ember’ (2024) at Lismore Castle Arts blurs the boundaries between building, location and artwork. Using the remoteness of the The Mill as part of the work itself, the viewer is invited into a calcified environment that feels ‘outside’ of society, suspended both physically and temporally. Time here feels slower. Audio made from the building’s stones is played back, distorted and alive. The sculptures, growing out the ground and into the roof, are somewhere between mineral and organic. Humans have a fragile yet essential relationship to this space; one of the sculptures has a heart-string made of human hair, the walls have traces of human intervention. ...

Founded by Lucas Giles and Will Hainsworth in 2024, Palmer Gallery is a space dedicated to identifying and developing the strongest emerging artistic talent of today. The gallery is situated in London’s Lisson Grove, in a 1000 ft2 former-factory built in the 1920’s by the Palmer Tyre Company, who produced parts for the Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster Bombers during The Second World War. The gallery programme focuses on cross-disciplinary artists working across painting, sculpture, video, performance, light and sound installation, creating an immersive exhibition space. This multi-sensory approach embraces a holistic view of contemporary art while championing an institutional dedication to framing and contextualising complex artistic practices. Palmer Gallery’s core mission is to allow artists to express themselves and thrive in an open, supportive and experimental environment; fostering a culture of creative freedom and connection among the gallery’s artists and the wider community. ...