Series

Venezuela

Verónica Marcano is finishing a series of paintings about Venezuela: the migration out of the country; the disappeared, among them protestors, opposition members and ordinary people; and those killed in the protests against the Venezuelan government between 2014 and 2024. It is the body of work she wants to exhibit as a group, and to tour.

Three paintings remain to complete it in its present form. Ideally there will be eighty-four, because she wants to represent everyone who died in those protests.

The figures are drawn in the same single continuous line as the rest of her figures, in gold, cream or copper on ultramarine, and here the line carries something else. In Never Forget they stand in a grid and go, row by row, from standing to kneeling to lying flat. In Torture Studies they ring a centre and fold towards it. In History Will Remember empty rectangles stand among them where figures would be.

Gold leaf runs through the series. In her words:

In several of my paintings, in particular the ones relating to Venezuela, the gold represents the potential for brilliance of the lives that are no longer here, the goodness and greatness of those who migrated, the resilience of those who stayed.

Venezuela · 8Show allNewest first

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A flat gold suitcase, seen square on, centred on a deep indigo ground. Inside it a disc of gold leaf carries dark diagonal bars across its face, like the griddle marks on a flatbread.

Emigration2025 · Venezuela
salí con mi arepa debajo del brazo

On an ultramarine ground, about thirty small outlined rectangles arranged in a radiating ring, each containing a single continuous cream line drawing a human figure — upright at the outer edge, bent, folded and collapsed towards the centre.

Torture Studies2024 · Venezuela

A grid of cells ruled in gold on ultramarine, each holding one figure drawn in a single gold line. Read down the rows the figures go from standing and walking, to crouching, to kneeling, to lying flat.

Never Forget2024 · Venezuela

Small copper single-line figures scattered across a flat ultramarine ground in loose rows, with empty copper-outlined rectangles standing in the gaps between them where figures would be.

History Will Remember2024 · Venezuela

One tall figure drawn in a single broad gold line on ultramarine, standing with its hands held behind its back, surrounded by a halo of brushed darker blue that echoes its outline.

Venezuela2024 · Venezuela

Four ragged vertical lines of gold and cream rising from the lower edge of a deep blue field, each ending in a small flare, like burnt-down tapers of different heights.

What Could Have Been I2024 · Venezuela

Gold vertical trails on deep blue, two tall and two short, thickening into blunt flames at their tips; a small detached mark hangs in the space beside them.

What Could Have Been II2024 · Venezuela

On a brighter blue ground, one long gold line runs almost the full height of the canvas with a pointed tip; three much shorter gold marks sit low and to the sides.

What Could Have Been III2024 · Venezuela