For the second exhibition at its new Chelsea location, David Nolan Gallery is pleased to present “Viva La Musa!,” (Long Live The Muse!), the first New York exhibition of Sandra Vásquez de la Horra, featuring over 60 new drawings.

Vàsquez de la Horra was raised in Chile under the Pinochet regime. Her drawings are alarmingly personal and self-actualizing, their dark imagery and imbued feelings taken from her past. She works intuitively, pressing cautiously and abrasively onto the paper”s surface. Her work ranges in size: from intimate (8×6 inches) to demonstrative (40×30 inches). The yellowed pages have a story of their own and each welcomes a drawing depicting an unusual dream-like figure or group in a bodily act. German, English and Spanish text accompanies some of the images, revealing subtle evidence of the autobiographical nature of her work. Upon completion, Vàsquez de la Horra dips each drawing in translucent molten beeswax, sealing the imperfect form in a parchment-like laminate. When the wax hardens, the fragile drawing is transformed into an armored object: a locked diary.

The drawings revisit emotional themes, such as persecution, self-abandonment and sex, as well as cultural illusions, such as religion, myth and fables. Vàsquez de la Horra does not work in series; each drawing is singular. The clustered, salon-like installation will suggest a hidden logic, but one in which the drawings retain an element of secrecy and mystery that is never fully revealed. Vàsquez de la Horra”s work has been compared to that of Louise Bourgeois, Nancy Spero and Edvard Munch, for its shared portrayal of how social realities and dreams express each other.

Sandra Vàsquez de la Horra was born in Chile in 1967. She graduated from the University for Design in Viña del Mar, Chile in 1994, and completed post-graduate studies at the Kunsthochschule für Medien, Cologne in 2003. She now lives in Düsseldorf, Germany, where she attended the famous Kunstakademie from 1995 to 2002.

The gallery’s project room will feature a new sculpture by the American artist Mel Kendrick.