At OFFSCREEN Jorge Rosano Gamboa presents two series of cyanotypes inspired by miracles of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico. In “Are you not under my shade and shelter?” (2024) the artist pays homage to Juan Diego, one of the first indigenous saints canonized by the Catholic church who had a vision of the Virgin Mary in 1531. The artist brought a cloth soaked in cyanotype chemicals to the site where the apparition is celebrated each year by the community and exposed it to the sun in the shape of the original vision of the Virgin’s cloak. Afterwards, he embroidered a map of the stars of that day onto the material, re-enacting the “miracle” to create a new image. In “The Stellar Influence” (2022) Gamboa created a series of cyanotypes using the shadows of thorns from nopal cacti to create a star-like patterning. The nopal cactus is symbolic in Mexico, and is also often associated with the Virgin. Gamboa’s work materially investigates time and history, often working with artifacts that have a historical and psycho-affective aura, and drawing on the rich cultural tradition of his native Mexico. His work creates landscapes where absence becomes visible, composed of spectral images that seem unfinished as they are only traces of memories.

Gamboa has exhibited at the Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art, Museo Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, Museum of Contemporary Art of Querétaro, Centro de la Imagen, Casa Wabi, Filet Space, London, and many others. He graduated from the National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving La Esmeralda in Mexico (2011) and He completed his Master’s in Art Criticism and Production at SOMA (2017). His research has been enriched with several residences from Mexico to Berlin, Houston and Los Angeles. He will stay in Japan in 2025 with Casa Wabi.

Located in Le Marais in Paris, Galerie Dix9 was found in 2007. Hélène Lacharmoise, after initially studying political sciences in Paris, turned to art and specialized in contemporary art and cinema at Ecole du Louvre and the Sorbonne in Paris. Pursuing a consistent and personal line, the gallery puts the emphasis on the artist’s vision and its relation to the medium used. It is particularly interested in artists who work across disciplines . Following its editorial line, Galerie Dix9 aims to introduce emerging artists to local and international audiences. It has often held their first solo show. It may occasionally promote some mid career artists not represented in France. Their ideas start from the « real », whether treated realistically or not. Their work concentrates on passages and mutations, looking for the past in tomorrow’s world, somewhere between illusion and objectivity, reality and fiction, memories and the forgotten. It’s a matter of duration and time, whether intimate, social or political. And it’s a matter of image and identity, the conditions of its manifestation and perception