Jorge Tacla, Identidad Oculta 160, 2021. oil and cold wax on canvas. 40 x 30 inches (101.6 x 76.2 cm).
Facing visitors as they arrive at this small but striking exhibition of work by Jorge Tacla is a painting of a large plinth, bereft of its celebrated subject. A pair of spectral gray smears rise from the plinth--at whose sprawling base the viewer is placed perspectivally--as if in vague allusion to that absence. With its neobaroque adornments agitated by the artist's characteristically blurred brushwork, part of his cold wax technique, the monument offers no clue as to its precise location. The painting's title, Identidad Oculta 160 (Hidden Identity 160, 2021), confirms that anonymity. But even in its solitude and the generic blue of its sky, the site is hardly unmoored from actuality.
