SYNTHESIS AND SUBVERSION: A Latino Direction in San Antonio Art

. . . Known for her performances and video work, Ana de Portela has concentrated on object-making since she returned to her native San Antonio from New York, although her static work is also based on issues and images of the body. Her sculptures wrapped with plaster-drenched sheets relate to her performance, I Like Europe and Europe Likes Me, which was based on Joseph Beuys's first performance in the U.S. Where Beuys wrapped himself in a felt blanket and lived with a coyote for three days in a New York gallery, de Portela concealed herself with burlap and crouched mysteriously in a plaza in Vienna. A similar sense of wonder is evoked by Pink Sphinx, which has the anthropomorphic presence of a draped Kore figure and the mystery of a shrouded vase and pedestal. The ambiguity of the image and continuity of forms also characterize de Portela's installation at the Satellite Space in which a fluid mass of shiny tar appears to be cascading down the wall. Poured horizontally and erected on single sheets of drywall, the phallic or breast-like image occupies a seamless expanse of wall. De Portela's soft and malleable materials are characterized by a responsiveness to touch and a flesh-like pliability in their uncongealed state. Once hardened, the plaster or tar retain evidence of process along with an acknowledgment of gravity.

-- Excerpt from the brochure essay by curator, Frances Colpitt, Associate Professor of Art History and Criticism, UTSA