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DIANA MERCADO at the Ecuadorian Embassy


DIANA MERCADO

RECUERDOS DE LOS ANDES

on show at the Ecuadorian Embassy

1–9 June 2023, 10.00–17.00

We are delighted to announce that the exhibition will continue from 1–9 June at the Embassy of Ecuador. If you would like to visit us during this time, please email thegallery@greenandstone.com to book an appointment. Please state the day and time you would like to visit. We are open from 10.00—17.00, Monday to Friday.

Address: 3 Hans Crescent, London, SW1

For further information regarding artworks, including prices and high-resolution images, please email thegallery@greenandstone.com with the TITLE(s) of the artwork(s) you are interested in.

  • The mountains are always there. They are always with me...

    Recuerdos de Los Andes (Memories of the Andes) explores

    themes of loss, displacement, identity, and memory. Born

    in Guayaquil, Diana Mercado left her home in Ecuador as a

    child and immigrated to the United States. Her body of work

    evolved from childhood memories and a desire to recapture

    those early days of living in a paradise of overwhelming

    beauty. Dreamlike, imbued with a sense of nostalgia

    and childlike wonder, her paintings evoke the beauty of

    the soaring Andes, the ethereal landscapes of Ecuador,

    the flickering lights of Quito, and the chagra, Ecuador’s

    traditional cowboy, disappearing into the ghostly horizon.

    She is profoundly interested in the experience of leaving

    one’s homeland – the loss of identity and the struggle to

    assimilate in a foreign country as an ‘alien’. With melancholy

    and warmth, her paintings speak to her feelings of grief

    following her separation from Ecuador. Young women

    appear, working tirelessly at their sewing machines, riding

    the subways, or dreaming of the mountains, while mothers

    and children arrive in the great metropolis of New York or

    reach for the comfort of soft toys that drift through water

    and abstract skies. These paintings attempt to redefine

    the definition of immigrants as ‘aliens’, so they are instead

    understood as mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons —

    human beings.

    The paintings were created through a rhythmic application

    of thin layers of paint that echoes the process of leaving

    one’s home for another country. In the same way, the

    textural effects of glaze and scumbling conjure a sense of

    the passage of time. Subtle variations of colour and light

    suggest the gauziness of memories as they blur and dissolve

    into the past.

  • Diana Mercado was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador. She left Ecuador as a child and immigrated to the United States. Diana received her BA and MA from Columbia University.

    In 2009, she moved to London and began her artistic journey, studying at the Chelsea College of Arts, London, and The Art Academy, London, as well as the New York Academy of Art.

    Her first exhibitions, Mujeres, in London, and Verde, at Neiman Marcus in New York, took place in 2021. Her painting, When I was Young, was selected for exhibition in 2021 as part of the Combined Federal Campaign’s Arts and Culture Show in Washington, D.C.

    Recuerdos de Los Andes is Diana’s first solo exhibition in London. She now lives in New York and London, and her work is held in numerous private collections in both the United States and Great Britain.

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SCARLETT SEGAL

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EMMA PAWLE