Sara Flores - White Cube
Sara Flores
13 December 2023 – 13 January 2024
White Cube Paris
White Cube is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in Europe of works by Sara Flores (b.1950), one of the foremost contemporary artists emerging from the Amazonian basin.
Known for her intricate, geometric paintings on textile, Flores lives and works in Peru and is part of the Shipibo-Conibo People, an Indigenous group spread out alongside the Ucayali River.
Expanding the traditional form of Kené, a Shipibo term for ‘design’ and whose etymology can be linked with the verb kéenti, which means to love or care for, Flores’ works are characterised by elaborate, hand-drawn traceries that recall labyrinths, neural networks or cybernetic systems.
Created using knowledge passed down matriarchally through generations, Kené is part of a deeply entwined belief system. With motifs originating from cosmology and inspired by the anaconda’s patterned skin, the Shipibo learn their designs through taking part in ayahuasca ceremonies involving the consumption of psychoactive plants. It is believed that women see Kené in contemplations, visions or hallucinations, and over time these states materialise into compositions.
Considered as a portal to a wider synaesthetic experience, Shipibo artistic and healing practices seamlessly weave ritual, aesthetics, ecology, social structures and the supernatural into a complex, multifaceted whole.
This exhibition is a collaboration with the Shipibo-Conibo Center, New York. The Center is an art project in the form of a nonprofit organisation that works alongside Indigenous leadership in the Amazon toward Shipibo self-determination and territorial sovereignty in a sustainable future.
Coinciding with the White Cube Paris exhibition, Flores’ works are featured in the group show ‘Vision Chamaniques’, currently on view at Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chiracin Paris.
White Cube:
Irene Del Principe
Press Officer, Communications
E irenedelprincipe@whitecube.com
T +44 (0)7734 995 878
Fouchard Filippi Communications:
Philippe Fouchard Filippi
phff@fouchardfilippi.com
T: +33 (0)1 53 28 87 53
M: +33 (0)6 60 21 11 94
Sara Flores’ recent solo exhibitions include White Cube Online (2021) and Outsider Art Fair, New York (2020). Recent group shows include Musée du quai Branly, Paris (2023); Para Site, Hong Kong (2023); El Museo del Barrio, New York (2023); Inca Garcilaso Cultural Center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Peru and MAC Museum of Contemporary Art of Lima, Peru (2022); Drawing Lab, Centre d'art privé dédié au dessin contemporain, Paris (2020) and Austrian Cultural Forum, New York (2018). Her work is housed in public collections worldwide including El Museo del Barrio, New York; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, Netherlands; Mali, Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru; NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital Contemporary Art Collection, New York; JPMorgan Chase Art Collection, New York.
White Cube’s exhibition programme extends across locations in London, Hong Kong, Paris, New York, Seoul, West Palm Beach and online. Since its inception in 1993, the gallery has exhibited the work of many of the world’s most highly acclaimed contemporary artists.
Installation views
Sara Flores
'Sara Flores', White Cube Paris
13 December 2023 – 13 January 2024