That mathematics involves beauty is a subject that has been widely discussed since antiquity. The rational rigor of the calculated proportions contains in itself an austere and clean harmony that fascinates by its accuracy and the unveiling it makes of abstract realities. It is not another source from which the work of Inés Silva, an architect-trained artist, who has known how to explore space through an intuition about the mathematical relationships that make it up and, perhaps, sustain it, is nurtured.
Like the wind, space is only perceptible in its articulations with other elements. To express it, for Inés Silva, means to give plasticity to her finesse through a minimal vocabulary: colored lines and transparent planes. In her work, transparency acquires a fundamental role, by allowing the artistic verbalization of space. For this, the artist uses plexiglass, material that allows her not only to create a visual dynamism of diaphanous concatenations, but to play with the properties of the invisible. In this way, Silva can resort to virtuality –introducing planes that exist only in our mind, but not in reality– as a powerfully expressive element.
Between the Lines emphasizes this game of visual relationships that occur in the space that is contained among the many lines of colors that make up these series of works. On this occasion, the artist has studied Goethe's theory of color, in which the polarity of the luminous and dark tones is relevant. The line, as a trigger element of the plastic expression of space in her work, defines here the intangible and materializes the relationships between light, color and directionality. In these pieces, the line and the space not only unleash the surprising ways in which visual elements such as the form or movement appear –real or virtual–, but also promote a sensitive sensory and perceptual experience, giving the work of Inés Silva the subtle and neat attribute that characterizes it.
Katherine Chacón
Art critic and curator · Published in the catalogue Between the Lines (2018).