Bogotá-born, New York-based Fanny Sanín worked with the pictorial language of abstraction since the late 1960s, becoming known for her dedication to hard-edge geometries. Oil No. 7 (1969) was created during a crucial period in Sanín’s career. At this time, her oeuvre transitioned from the gestural abstraction with which she inaugurated her practice in the late 1950s, following her graduation from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, to the carefully crafted sophistication of her constructed geometries post-1969. In the painting, well-defined fields of dark, warm colours signal the flattening of the pictorial space. This marks the initial stages of the geometrisation process, a transformation that would later give rise to the severe symmetrical compositions for which she is best known today. The painting also hints at her hallmark layered use of colour as well as the vertical lines and areas that structure most of her mature work. Oil No. 7 is a work that speaks to the artist’s search for a personal language, revealing Sanín’s innate inclination and skill for colour while awaiting her definitive compositional approach, which would determine her lasting career.
This is the first time the work of Fanny Sanín is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Emiliano Valdes
