Exhibitions

 Vargas Gallery, in collaboration with the Art Department of Vargas University, is proud to present Moon Woman - Figurative Abstraction by Astrid Alcayaga.

It is generally recognized that Jackson Pollock’s abstract drip paintings, executed from 1947, opened the way to the bolder, gestural techniques that characterize Action painting.

The subject of the moon woman, which Pollock treated in several drawings and paintings of the early 1940’s is used as the title of this exhibition curated by Henry Ballate.

Few art movements are as synonymous with the image of a paint-splattered male painter than abstract expressionism. Some of art history’s most radical masculine personalities emerged from the period in which the physicality of the works echoed the ever-present cult of manhood.

Astrid Alcayaga, positioning her work as genderless, elaborated on a technique adopted by Jackson Pollock. Her lyrical abstractions are stunning to behold and her influence is unmistakable.  A wide variety of figurative interpretations is highlighted throughout her extensive work, but always dancing around or within the abstract. Other women in the abstract expressionism movement used figurative abstraction as a bridge; however, for Astrid the figurative abstraction is her foundation and style.

Her explosive brushwork and layered painting style rivaled the instinctual and highly dynamic style that involves spontaneous application and the chance effects of dripping and spilling paint onto the canvas. In this exhibition, a woman is no longer the subject, but the artist, who leaves us a work of pure emotions.