The gallery Catherine Putman, presents "Extracto", curated by Albertine de Galbert, an exhibition of contemporary drawings by South-American artists.

ERNESTO BALLESTEROS
Born in Buenos Aires in 1963, lives and works in Buenos Aire, Argentina.

Ernesto’s lines are stories: of choices, liberty, possible, sensations. Throughout these lines one can read obsession or lightness, get lost in existential issues, or just start a visual journey.

JOHANNA CALLE
Born in Bogota in 1965, lives and works in Bogota, Colombia.

Johanna Calle converted “the Trial” of Kafka into a calligraphic object, messed up the lines of accounting books, punched holes in the official reports of the Colombian government that she had previously copied. By converting these texts into a plastic material, she creates her own language.

MATIAS DUVILLE
Born in Buenos Aires in 1974, lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

His drawings represents devastated landscapes, upside down realities, invented nature phenomenons. While watching them, one feels like facing a Caspar David Friedrich’s winter landscape. It is at once rough and poetic.

VOLUSPA JARPA
Born in Rancagua in 1971, lives and works in Santiago du Chili.

These drawings from the series « Plaga » are swarms of flying women having hysterical crisis, applied on paper with inkpads. These figures are copies of photographs taken during professor Jean-Martin Charcot’s hypnosis sessions, at the end of the XIXth century.

Voluspa will also exhibit her work at the « Maison de l’Amérique Latine » in Paris from April 8th to May 12th 2010.

CRISTINA LLANO
Born in Cali in 1955, lives and works in Cali, Colombia.

« Abrazos » : this series of 200 drawings dedicated to her brother who was shot by the Colombian guerrilla warfare, are representations of embraced figures. You may see whatever you want, mothers and childs, lovers, friends... Christna's drawing are not only the expression of a personal trauma but also a gesture of freedom.

ÁLVARO OYARZÚN
Born in Santiago in 1960, lives and works in Santiago, Chile.

Alvaro is a self-taught artist. He draws amazing baroque scenes, between violence and black humour. To really see them, one needs to get closer because his « compositions » mid one meter square and everything in it is so tiny that from a distance one could confuse it with an abstract painting.

From February 19th to April 18th 2010, Alvaro’s works will be displayed in the exhibition « Chili, l’envers du décor » at the « Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton » in Paris.

EDWIN SANCHEZ
Born in Bogota in 1976, lives and works in Bogota, Colombia.

For this 7 minutes video, Edwin asked former soldiers from paramilitary groups, and from the Colombian warfare to draw their stories. The result is striking. The thick and deep voices of these men and the atrocity of the stories they are telling contrast with the childish manner of the drawings.