María Fragoso “El jardín entre tus dientes”

1969 Gallery (39 White St.)

[Image: María Fragoso "Seeding" (2020) oil on canvas, 36h x 40w in.]

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“Beyond sabers, grass snakes, frogs, fire, beyond her own saliva, one can, in certain circumstances, swallow the saliva of her companion lover, her blood, her chewed food, her mucus, her snot, her nose bleeds, her spit, her burps, her winds, her cyprine, her vomit, her tears, her urine, all practices that maintain affection and are agreeable to the mouth. From which come the expressions ‘delicate mouth’, ‘to be open mouthed’, ‘prone to the mouth’ or to the contrary, ‘to be bad-mouthed’, to speak of someone who does not appreciate the pleasant attributes of her companion lover. ‘To mouth’ is also said to signify two companion lovers disposed to swallow one another.”

- Brouillon pour un dictionnaire des amantes, Monique Wittig & Sande Zeig

1969 Gallery presents El jardín entre tus dientes, María Fragoso’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, featuring six new paintings and 13 new works on paper by the 25-year old artist.

In Seeding, Fragoso presents the viewer with a doubled portrait, as two figures raise gloved hands, water spouting from their mouths. Their elbows rest on a clothed table littered with objects such as pomegranates, snails, and a conch shell—an arrangement evoking the ritualesque—as Fragoso’s twin subjects perform an ambiguous act in an undefined space. In the foreground, two more red latex gloves enter from out of frame, suggesting the ceremony’s significance may lie beyond the scope of the representable. To mouth presents the bodies of two masked figures interlocked amidst flora and fauna. Shells and fruits are once again strewn across the foreground, signaling that Fragoso’s canvases share a common, illusory setting. This landscape becomes subject in Decadencia, un solo sabor a fruta madura, a not quite still life in which snails slither amongst bruised apples, cracked egg shells, and tie-dyed oranges.

In Fragoso’s work, notions of realism and naturalism are eschewed for the surreal, as the artist engenders a space of pure symbolism, where fantasy and the uncanny can take form. Such a space privileges the personal over the universal, as Fragoso mines the subconscious for fears, desires, and their representations. Fragoso’s smooth, fleshy forms are rendered with considerable depth, and each scene is meticulously framed, allowing for full absorption into the artist’s evocative dreamscapes.

María Fragoso (b. 1995, Mexico City) lives and works in Mexico City. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College Art (MICA) in Baltimore. Her residences include Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Yale Norfolk School of Art, Vermont Studio Center Fellowship and Palazzo Monti. She attended the Studio Arts College International (SACI) study abroad program in Florence, Italy. Fragoso is represented by 1969 Gallery, New York, where she made her debut in Routine Malfunction, curated by Coady Brown and Pat Phillips. Other recent exhibitions include Miami is a Beach, 1969 Gallery, New York, NY; A Very Anxious Feeling: Voices of Unrest in the American Experience (20 Years of the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection), Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA; Second Smile, The Hole, NY; New__on the block, Machete, Mexico City; and No Place Like, Field Projects, NY. She was chosen for the Forbes 30 Under 30 2021: Art & Style - Creating and designing the future of fashion and the arts.