Alex Rispal's 'WHAT HOLDS' Explores Material Endurance in New Solo Show
Latitude residency unveils Alex Rispal's exhibition inspired by South Africa's Swartland, using chemigram techniques on palm fragments and.
Key Points
- Inspired by weathered palm fragments from South Africa's Swartland wine region.
- Employs chemigram technique on gelatin silver paper, folding and manipulating into sculptures.
- Displays pillars wrapped in photo paper and freestanding fragments in black-gray palette.
- Rispal works from Madrid studio, merging camera-less photography with painting.
The artistic residency Latitude has opened *WHAT HOLDS*, a solo exhibition by Alex Rispal, in collaboration with Kokos Huis and backed by the Andorran government's International Artistic Residencies Grants.
The show explores how materials endure amid transformation, drawing from Rispal's time in South Africa's Swartland region—a wine-growing area shaped by human intervention and natural cycles. There, the artist gathered palm fragments near his residency, weathered by sun, weather, and life cycles yet retaining their inner structure. These became raw material for sculpture.
Rispal extends his chemigram technique, treating analog photography as a physical process. Using gelatin silver paper, chemicals, and controlled light, he manipulates the photographic surface—folding, wrapping, or cutting it—to turn images into objects. On display are pillars wrapped in photographic paper alongside freestanding palm fragments, highlighting the pull between alteration and preservation.
Wall pieces and sculptures dominate, unified by a palette of blacks, grays, and muted mauve and blue tones. Rispal's practice revolves around camera-less analog photography, including chemigrams, photograms, and liquid emulsion, often blended with painting methods.
The artist now pursues this work from his Carabanchel studio and lab in Madrid, probing the interplay of nature and technology alongside shifts in reality perception.
Original Sources
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