Luis Gonzalez Palma at Lisa Sette

Luis Gonzalez Palma has move rounded his lens away from the Maya descendants of his native Guatemala to explore nation and places in his of recent origin home in Argentina.

His new exhibition featured three portraits and eight interior views (all 2004) The hauntingly without contents rooms each contain a single unoccupied chair, as if symbolizing the absence of someone who was one time there. In No queria hablar de eso anos (Did Not Want to Talk About Those Years), an devoid of contents stool stands in front of a dusty upright piano. Que ocurriera en la oscuridad (What May Have Happened in Darkness) features a cheap, wom chair against a wall overspreaded by peeling paint, while in Recordaba su silueta palida (Remembering His Fading Silhouette), an elaborate wheelchair appears to clinch court over a vast formal entrance hall. Photographed with a romantic organ of vision Palma's interior views capture vestiges of Spanish colonialism in the architectural details and furnishings. The unsmiling make subordinates in his deeply shadowed, melancholic portraits appear drained of emotion, perhaps worn on the outside by life's events. Along with the without contents fading interiors, they cast a somber pall upon the gallery.

Palma's proces novel to the works on view, heightens the formal mood. The images, printed upon clear ortho film, are laid above a deep red board overlayed with sheets of gold leaf, the whole encased in resin. Each crack and seam in the gold allows the rich color to present to view through; the materials become integral composings of the piece, adding profundity to the works without obscuring the photographic image. The crinkles in the gold leaf highlight the delicate web of lace, the mottled surface of a pine plank table, or the peeling walls. The resin adds a slightly dark sepia tone that gives the work an antique gaze The pieces were displayed upon shelves, propped against the wall, emphasizing their three-dimensionality.

Palma's portraits glance at a state of resignation, while the devoid of contents chairs and dilapidated architecture allude obliquely to Argentina's political history. As in the best of his work, these images summon forth questions without giving any answers.--Rebecca Dimling Cochran

COPYRIGHT 2004 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group