Materia Viva 2013

Requena Nozal's 'Materia Viva' is a vibrant pastel drawing, a riotous bloom of blues, greens, and yellows set against a stark black background. The composition is split into two halves by a horizontal band of darkness. These colours and forms stir a sense of nature's untamed energy. Nozal's use of color and texture challenges traditional notions of representation. The dark band in the center acts as a void, disrupting any easy reading of the artwork as a landscape. This void invites us to question what is absent. The artwork's title ‘Living Matter’ further complicates our understanding by evoking the raw, generative forces of nature. Ultimately, 'Materia Viva' functions as a semiotic system. It destabilizes fixed meanings and celebrates the potential for ongoing interpretation, embodying the very essence of living matter. The unresolved tension between the forms leaves us with a sense of the artwork as a space of possibility.