CONUCO

Somers Gallery
London
2026
Photos by Aura photo

Read the essay about the exhibition, by Santiago Valencia Parra (ají press).

+ PDF: TEXTO DE SANTIAGO VALENCIA PARRA (ESPAÑOL)
+ PDF: TEXT BY SANTIAGO VALENCIA PARRA (ENGLISH)

From the press release:

The paintings in this exhibition bring together three series that overlapped over two years, developing through the process and unfolding across different formats and scales. El Conuco de Marcos began with visits to a friend’s allotment on the outskirts of Caracas in 2024. The canvases and small studies function as field notes: quick variations on steep hillsides, dense cultivated growth, and plant details—attempting to translate the almost excessive fertility of difficult ground that nonetheless produces generously.

En la Ruta de Cova emerged while reading La vorágine (The Vortex, 1923) by José Eustasio Rivera, a modernist novel about the violence of the rubber boom in the Colombian–Venezuelan Amazon in the early 20th century.

In Kopë Kë Theka, painting led naturally to a study of slash-and-burn cultivation (kopë kë theka in Yanomami). Burned ground appears as both interruption and promise—apparent death and future fertility; an agricultural gesture that cuts across cultures and time.