Biography
Gabriela Pertovt, regarded by specialized critics as the painter of the "New Nativeness", worked for more than 10 years with the icons of Argentina: the ceibo flower, the flag, the ombu tree, and so on.
In a first stage she worked with the jean trouser, as a bearer of symbolic and social significance.
In a second period, that reaches the present, she worked with her blue and white ribbons, intertwined in that particular way she has called "Creole fabric"; they have been taking different shapes and sizes, becoming the last years into "woven cows".
These cows inhabit her paintings, in different situations, and get in a playful and irreverent way into classic works of universal art, or they bump into characters from everyday life.
So we find "Pablo's cow" ["La vaca de Pablo"] (a very personal approach to the "Guernica" by Picasso), or “The cow of the menina” [“La vaca de la menina] in allusion to Velázquez; or "Muuuuuunch", where the familiar figure of "The scream" seems to get scared of the Argentinian cow.
She has more than 30 awards and scholarships, and was awarded by prestigious juries in awards and competitions, nationally and internationally. The most exciting for this artist is the constant production and the challenge of reaching the massive public with her work.
She exhibits continuously in the country and abroad, where more than 250 of her works belong to private collections
The newspapers Clarín and La Nación stated about her painting:
"... the tied cow, the bottles of Coke coated with Argentine flags and the profile of Eva Perón that Gabriela Pertovt painted to display, with a large dose of irony, the syncretism between the own and the foreign."
Sousa Giselle Díaz
Revista Ñ, Clarín Newspaper
"... the Holland-Argentine cow tied to an American flag on the face of Evita on some ceibo flowers -creations by Gabriela Pertovt-, are a true finding and well worth a visit ..."
Loreley Gaffoglio
La Nación Newspaper
Vision of art
1. Choose a work that represents you, describe it in relation to its format and materiality, its relation with time and space, its style and theme; detail its production process.
"There's a cow in my life" ["Hay una vaca en mi vida"]
1 x 1 m
Acrylic on canvas
2. In general terms, how would you suggest to approach your work?
My paintings seek to be a political reflection on the reality that I live as an Argentine, but always with humor and irony.
I want the viewer to think and have fun. But I am interested "a lot" in what I have to say. I belonged to the "Espinal" group for 10 years and with them I practice the "art of resistance"
3. In reference to your work and your position in the national and international art fields, what tradition do you recognize yourself in? Who are your contemporary referents? What artists of previous generations are of interest to you?
Regarding my work, I have been described by the critics as the "Painter of the new nativeness" or "An emblematic painter" because I work with our national flag and the colors that represent us, and I think they are right. I identify with these definitions. Surely my image has a lot of "POP ART", because of the color and the way I work, especially in recent years.
Of Argentinian contemporary painters I identify with Juan Doffo, Luis Felipe Noé, with Andrés Compagnucci.
4. Choose works or exhibitions from the last ten or fifteen years which in your opinion were very significant and explain why
In recent years, I think that the most impressive exhibitions have been those of León Ferrari. I also liked the Kuitca's exhibition in the MALBA and the 90-60-90 retrospective at the Palais de Glace.
I am interested in all the exhibitions that have a social-political message.
5. What tendencies or groupings from common elements do you see in argentine art of the last ten or fifteen years?
I think there is a group of artists like me, which come from the countryside, and make an anti-ligth painting, a committed art, a "commitment to the arts and to our place."
