María Berrío: The End of Ritual

Introduction

Victoria Miro is delighted to present new works by Brooklyn-based artist María Berrío. The End of Ritual depicts moments of disquiet articulated within densely populated interiors, spaces where the old world meets the new and a restless dynamic unfolds between performers and spectators in and out of the frame.

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication featuring new writing on the artist by Siddhartha Mitter, who comments, ‘Never before has Berrío drawn us so close, invested her figures with this physical power that projects out and scrambles our sensory field. It’s almost aggressive – an interpellation. The tumult on canvas proceeds from a compositional method but addresses the tumult of the world.’

Berrío is celebrated for works that draw upon aspects of mythology and folklore to create narratives that address contemporary issues of identity, agency, and survival, particularly those experienced by women and children in the face of overwhelming ecological, economic or geo-political forces. These new works take place in often crowded interiors, where some characters appear governed by mysterious forces, while others go about their business unconcerned. For the first time, she has collaborated with dancers – from the New York City-based GALLIM contemporary dance company – who, supplied with masks and costumes from the artist’s collection, were invited to improvise movements which fed into Berrío’s working process.

Aspects of fantasy, masquerade, history and our frenetic present are woven together, while the artist’s blending of Japanese papers and watercolour, tender and tactile but always with the turbulent splice of collage as a resounding echo, further articulates the work’s fractured narratives. The results are something like a vibrant, surreal folktale or, as Mitter defines in his essay, ‘the fabric of dreams – no longer their unfurled narratives, but the rough and hectic machinery of their making, the way in which signs, memories and allusions escape the category fetters of the rational mind and collide in unquiet sleep.’

Works

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María Berrío

María Berrío is celebrated for works that draw on aspects of mythology and folklore to create narratives that address contemporary issues of identity, agency and survival. Her large-scale works, which are meticulously crafted from watercolour paint and layers of Japanese paper, reflect on cross-cultural connections and global migration seen through the prism of her own history. Populated principally by women and children, Berrío’s art often appears to propose spaces of refuge or safety, kaleidoscopic utopias which have been inspired in part by South American folklore, where humans and nature coexist in harmony. To these apparently idealised scenes, however, Berrío brings to light the hard realities of present-day politics.

Archetypal themes of the search or quest, along with the rituals and symbolism of the mask, often envelop Berrío’s works. However, her imagery always comes first, with aspects of character and narrative tension built through composition and the choreography of space.

About the artist

María Berrío was born in Bogotá, Colombia in 1982. She completed her BFA at Parsons School of Design in 2004, and her MFA at the New York School of Visual Arts.

Major solo exhibitions include María Berrío: The Children's Crusade, ICA Boston, USA (2023); María Berrío: Esperando mientras la noche florece (Waiting for the Night to Bloom), The Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, USA (2021).

Institutional group exhibitions include Forbidden Territories: 100 Years of Surreal Landscapes, The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, UK (2024–25); Shifting Landscapes, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA (2024–26); Spirit in the Land, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA (2023), travelling to Pérez Art Museum, Miami, USA (2024) and Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, Jacksonville, USA (2024–25); Women Painting Women, The Modern, Fort Worth, Texas, USA (2022); A Natural Turn, The DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, USA (2022); Born in Flames: Feminist Futures, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, USA (2021); Labor: Motherhood & Art in 2020, University Art Museum at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, USA (2020); Present Tense: Recent Gifts of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, USA (2019); People Get Ready at Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina, USA (2018); Prospect.4 Triennial, New Orleans, USA (2017–18), Art on Paper Biennial, Weatherspoon Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA (2017), CUT N MIX, El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY, USA (2015).

Berrío's work is in permanent collections including the Albertina, Wien, Austria; Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, USA; Dallas Museum of Art, USA; Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice, New York, USA; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, USA; Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Boston and Miami, USA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), USA; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, USA; Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, USA; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, USA; Pérez Art Museum, Miami, Florida, USA; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, USA; Speed Art Museum, Louisville, USA; Weatherspoon Museum of Art at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, USA; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA; Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China.

Additionally, her work can also be seen in the public realm at the N subway stop at Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, where 14 of the artist's works have been translated in mosaic using a variety of media including glass, ceramic and enamel.

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