Memoria y vida / Memory and life

This publication presents the exhibition project “Memoria y vida” (Memory and Life), an artistic event held at the Eurostars Áurea Washington Irving 5* Hotel (adjacent to the Alhambra in Granada, Spain), resulting from the collaboration between Tess Gallery and the international hotel chain. The exhibition, active from February 2 to March 5, 2023, brought together a curated selection of paintings by two Andalusian artists with distinct yet complementary trajectories, united under the cultural initiative Eurostars Exhibitions.

On one hand, Toña Gómez (born 1954, Málaga) presents her series “Memoria del lugar” (Memory of Place). Through 18 largely intimate works (20x20 cm) in mixed media on canvas, the artist constructs a visual map of memories and sensations tied to space. In contrast to this intimate and grounded recollection, María Dolores Gallego (born 1988, Torreperogil, Jaén) offers a conceptual and chromatic reflection on contemporary life. The pictorial works of this artist and researcher employ colored tulle on stretchers to weave an unstable visual and existential narrative, where each hue is laden with meaning.

Thus, the exhibition establishes a fascinating dialogue between Gómez’s personal and geographic memory and Gallego’s technical, chromatic, and sensory exploration. As such, “Memoria y vida” is not merely the title of the exhibition but the very axis around which both artistic proposals revolve: one delves into the imprint of place on identity; the other examines the uncertainty of existence through color as a language of human experience.