Ima Montoya | MORE THAN THIS
From 14/09/2021 To 09/10/2021
More than this, Ima Montoya solo-show
By Filippo Guzzi
It is a look from above that we appreciate in Ima Montoya's paintings. For some it is a custom for others an absolute novelty: to allow yourself the opportunity to fly over a crowd of precise and distant heads away from any personal interaction. The possibility of taking a different look: that of the eagle that patiently chooses its prey; that of a vulture which, in hypnotic concentric circles, awaits the death of the weakest or, if desired, the gaze of a drone which, accompanied by the annoying hum of the engine, inspects the lives of each of us. A different look determined from a different point of view.
Ima montoya is an artist who, before having lived in many parts of the world (Japan, Hungary, Mexico, England) was born in Spain, in the city of Bilbao and, in fact, the presence, in the crowd, of the bull, recalls the plazas de toros, the festivals of San Fermín, the streets of Pamplona and the wild and chaste ritual of putting one's life on the line by fleeing the mad and desperate ferocity of the bull; a ferocity that comes from his fear of being alone and lost, without protection, charged only with brute force that becomes manipulated instinct, abandoned and thrown into the very center of the crowd among the screams, sweat, unknown words, human fear, the furious and liberating laughter. A sum of distorted and chaotic, dark sounds, which we, spectators of the "Stolen Time" works, are fortunately spared. From above we pass and observe: some dismayed by the drama that unfolds at our feet and those disappointed to want to be part of it.
Over the years, as can be seen on the imamontoya.com site, the artist's point of view has moved increasingly to a higher position, leaving the plastic form of death of fish in the Japanese market or the defeated face of a resigned Don Quixote, to show us the mystery of the crowd and its constant movement, like a tide on the beaches, between the quiet sensations of the absence of personal anxieties, of envy and small victories that ripple with identical waves the sea of the days of each of us, on both sides the mystery of a new thinking head, that of the crowd, which escapes control and, although apparently free, can instead be easy to manipulate, full of brute force managed with desperation and illogicality.
Because, by extension, the plaza de toros can be understood as a vast space or even as a square tout court, that is, a symbolic place of confrontation, meeting and confrontation, a place where even, putting oneself in the square, one can reveal oneself in full.
"Stolen time" is the work that Ima Montoya completed during the months of the Lock Down between the end of 2020 and this 2021 of uncertain restart, when among the most meaningful images of the historical moment we are experiencing there was precisely the square desolate, and, as in a dream or a nightmare, the square is empty. And then, the gaze from above ends, in this case, on the canvases we are observing, also to be the gaze of exclusion and the distance of our point of view from the crowd, whether serene or frightened, a thread stretched towards the memories and the future, because even the eagle lands and gets dirty with life and even the drone, sooner or later, the batteries run out.