Ivana Flores was one of the very first artists we have interviewed here on stuvvz.com. We are so happy to see her artistic endeavors blossom throughout the years, and we are so proud of her new exhibition, entitled “Seven Floors to Heaven”.
Her works have always been about dreamlike realities, where the whimsical, sensorial inner side of things are depicted. With a strong use of symbolism, she transpires different human experiences through her vulnerable-looking characters in her painting. It is as if she is expressing to us, an intricate memory of a world she often travels to, in her imagination. She often indulges her artworks with a touch of magic, where such zoomorphic and timeless artworks, are warm and safe to look at, yet hides the harshness of reality, constantly reminding one of the tension between expectation and hope. The direct and women-centric matters that she has created are now compiled into a single exhibition, where the viewers are surrounded by colorful, myth-like plots which she has introduced.
Emphasizing on the irony of “only going through hell get to heaven” in this Seven Floors to Heaven exhibition, each piece of artwork is fueled with contrasting terms, such as innocence and adulthood, happiness and sadness, light and dark, as well as other conflicting emotions. However, it is not a pessimistic vibe she is hoping to create, rather this notion that “at the end of the day, (we are) more alive.” Within the eyes of the animals and characters that she has created, they reveal the personal feelings of the artist herself, as well as a sense of inner strength of love and beauty.
