Gallery Diary – Lombardi—Kargl | Mercedes Mangrané

Works that appear soft and flaccid are, in fact, rigid and hard. Despite a crushed appearance, they retain a pulse of colour that filters through them and lingers. This exploration was sparked during a residency in the French Prealps, where her observation of rockfall containment nets— engineered to absorb kineticenergy — resonated with her artistic inquiry into how surfaces incorporate dynamics of impact.

Mangrané’s diverse body of work uncovers the hidden links between art history and our everyday life. This is further explored in a parallel series of glazed ceramics, Filtration. These objects represent an appropriation of a form designed for grip and ascent. Her research, including conversations with aclimbing wall routesetter, revealed a fascinating choreography of body memory and the vibration of colour used to stimulate concentration and appeal. These “holds” become static sculptures, dysfunctional "holds" that speak to the memory of movement and to a certain sense and ritual of finding balance.

Through her sensitive handling of materials, Mangrané creates a quiet yet powerful meditation on absorption and resilience. Her works invite us to reflect on relational support, permeability, and how the traces of experience — like an epidermal relationship, the absorbed pigment in plaster — permanently shape the forms that hold them.
 

Mangrané's exploration extends to the direct medium of watercolour on plaster, which can be seen in Dissipation X, a piece that captures the gesture of seepage and evaporation, leaving behind a fragile, fossilised record of dissipated energy.

The exhibition continues its flow with a new, on-site interventionapplied directly to the wall, presenting a large-scale, acquired format. Together, these works form a cohesive ecosystem of ideas, mappinga terrain where the macro-scale of a shoreline and the micro-scale of a crack in plaster converge.