"Cuaderno de los Gansos," or the full title in English "Notebook about Geese and Other Prayers: A restored space between prayers and plastic phrases," is a melody of mauve and natural colored watercolors combined with slate grays and the elegant curves of handwritten Spanish text.
Cano states, "This writing, again and again, always delivers us images as an unfinished repetition of the same worries: the fall, the satisfaction, the judgment, the provocation, the ties ... Phrases like 'heaven is watching me' or 'I make a domestic reading of things' reveal the search, always unfinished, of the sense between the everyday actions and the sacred."
In her efforts to capture precious lost innocence and treasured memories of simpler contemplations long past, Cano seems intent on interrupting a fluid relationship between adulthood and adulteration:
"Not through the childish gesture but through the daily work with paint brushes and pigments, it might be possible to recover, at least, a little bit of that gone childhood: the joy."
Coming to America
Andrea Morin, LITM's curator for the show, says that Cano will be flying into the U.S. just for the exhibit.
"She actually came to us," says Morin.
Cano is a friend of a friend of Jelynne Jardiniano, owner of LITM, and Jardiniano asked Morin to look at Cano's work for exhibit in the downtown Jersey City restaurant and gallery.
Morin agreed with Jardiniano that Cano's art would suit the gallery, and she says that LITM is very pleased to be hosting an international artist.
"It is definitely the first [international artist] since I started curating about a year ago. Most of our artists have been from the area or at least the tri-state area, so this is the first person that's coming in from the outside."
Morin added, "It's an honor really that our space is regarded with that much respect that an artist would actually take a month just to come and show at our space."
When asked how she felt the work would speak to LITM patrons, Morin was confident that it would appeal to their tastes as well as their multicultural backgrounds.
"I think that [Cano's work] is very fresh, and that our customers will respond well to it. We also have a very international clientele, and [they will see] we are bringing in international artists."
'Organic' form
In her artist's statement, Cano describes the interplay between the written word on paper and the watercolors that obscure, underlay, or accentuate the writing.
"The forms, empty or full, play with the movement of writing; phrases revealing concepts like satisfaction and desire: the crumbs of the dearest bites fall..."
Many of the watercolor stains bear the form of organic clouds; others streak across the vast page in veins of light and dark contrast.
Cano's work can evoke warmth, beauty, and intimacy with her use of color, or depth, loss, and complexity with her use of black space and handwriting slivers. The notebook-style introspection is surrounded by dimensions of thought painted around the clippings, and it's easy for the viewer to see a reflection in the abstract pond that Cano creates.
Jardiniano particularly enjoys the abstract nature of Cano's work, appealing primarily to her emotions and imagination to conjure an internal and individual reaction.
"What I like about abstract work is the flexibility for the art viewer to interpret it his or her own way," says Jardiniano. "Her work just kind of spoke to me in the way that it's very fresh and exciting."
Though she cannot read the Spanish writing on the paper, Jardiniano is obviously moved by the personal touch, and furthermore, the personality, that the scrawl adds to each piece. For her, art goes well beyond terms of abstraction and its analytical breakdown.
"To me - as for going into the technical terms of art - I feel more than I can describe."
Cano's work suggests that as an artist, she feels the same way.
Cano's exhibit, "Notebook about Geese," will be on display at LITM, 140 Newark Ave. in downtown Jersey City, from June 30 to July 20 with an opening reception on July 1.
Comments can be sent to Mpaul@hudsonreporter.com.
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