Luis González Palma, Mirada, 2002. Mixed Media, 20 x 40 inches. Edition 13 of 15.




Luis González Palma “Mirada”



At Throckmorton Fine Art, 145 East 57th Street, New York
Through February 25, 2023



By Benjamin Genocchio 



The past is eerily present in the dreamy, coffee-colored portrait photographs of Luis Gonzalez Palma, a legendary Latin American photographer who is currently the subject of a beguiling exhibition at Throckmorton Fine Arts in New York. 


Palma is a kind of chef, a master of ‘darkroom cuisine’ as clearly evidenced here — photographs in his latest exhibition, organized in collaboration with Schneider Gallery in Chicago exhibit an astonishing array of complicated photographic processes that include archival prints on canvas; hand-colored silver gelatin prints, sometimes tinted with bitumen, platinum and palladium prints; and prints on wool or watercolor paper.


The subject matter, on the other hand, is fairly consistent for Palma is focused on portraiture, in particular, he takes direct, stark, head-shot portraits of Latin American women, men and children staring directly at the camera. Several of the prints have a strong sepia tone, which gives them a patina of age.


Luis González Palma, La Luna, 1990. Gelatin silver print, printed later, 11-3/4 x 11-3/4 inches. Signed on verso.


Images in the show range from throughout the artist's long career with the earliest piece from 1989, a toned gelatin silver print titled La Rosa depicting a pretty, young Latin American woman wearing a headdress decorated with white roses. The whites of her eyes contrast spookily against the deep black of her headdress and pupils. 


Several portrait images from the mid to late 1990s on display here similarly leave the eyes of the figures a stark white, heightening our awareness of the direct stare or the gaze of the figures. We are looking at them looking at us, which creates an odd and unsettling visual feedback loop. The natural instinct is to look away immediately.


Mirada is the title of the show, a word that in Spanish means “look.” But it can also mean glance or gaze, and I think it is the ambiguity that exists here in the meaning that is captured in these compelling photographs. No wonder the artist focuses so much attention in his images on human eyes, for he wants to know what we see. He shows us what he sees through embellishing and layering the raw images.



Left: Luis González Palma, Rosa Desnuda, Mobius Series, 2015, printed 2015. Archival pigment print on canvas, acrylic, 20 x 20 inches. Signed in pencil on verso.  Right: Luis González Palma, Perdida en su pensamiento – Genoveva, 2011. Hand-painted Hahnemuhle watercolor paper, 20 x 20 inches. Edition 4/7. Labeled and signed.



The eyes are the window to the soul, we are often told, and if so then the faces in so many of these photographs reveal to us much about the subjects. Some of the faces are sad, or melancholy, others happy or even simply thoughtful as in Perdida en su Pensamiento — Genoveva, 2011, a hand-painted photographic print on watercolor paper. It shows a beautiful young woman lost in her thoughts. Love comes to mind.




Luis González Palma, The Shadows of His Youth, 2003. Transparency over gold leaf red paper and resin, 20 x 24 inches.

Born in Guatemala in 1957, Palma lives and works in Cordoba, Argentina. His work has been shown at the Art Institute of Chicago; The Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe; The Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney; Palacio de Bellas Artes, México City; The Royal Festival Hall, London; Palazzo Ducale di Genova, Genoa, among several other venues. He also received the Grand Prize at Photo España in 1999. 


La Luna, from 1990, is another powerful and in many ways extraordinary image — it again shows a female figure with a strange headdress, only this time what looks like a piece of bone or antlers in the shape of a crescent moon. The image is coffee-colored in tone, evoking the past, though most captivating is the contrast between the soft sensual curves of the denuded figure and the sharp pointed edges of the bone.


One might describe these photographs as surreal, or inspired by surrealism, but to me they seem heavily grounded in reality, even if the figures appear preoccupied or absent in some way. Beauty is a goal as well, the beauty of faces and the unspoken and intuitive connections we make with a glance or a smile. This is profoundly human photography, images of faces lost in hopes and dreams or grappling with flaws.




Discover Luis González Palma at Throckmorton Fine Art on Incollect