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Artist: Arturo Kameya

GRIMM presents a solo exhibition of new paintings by Arturo Kameya, on view at the New York gallery.

In Clavo torcido no teme martillo / A bent nail fears no hammer, Arturo Kameya continues his visual exploration of Peruvian socio-politics, located not in academic tomes but in imagery. His paintings trace the narratives and myths of everyday Peruvian life, interweaving the intensely personal with national identity and historical events. Kameya’s work is deeply informed by his experiences of growing up within suburban Lima in the 1990s, but – like memory, which is so often non-linear – these recollections are interspersed with popular motifs: images from sport and football; internet culture; folk traditions. The result is a practice that is geographically specific yet simultaneously raises broader questions surrounding inherited histories, cultural language, and the formation of identity.

The title of this exhibition draws on an alteration to a Japanese saying; as Kameya explains, "The nail that sticks out gets hammeredmeans that a person who is already damaged, dishonored, or who has nothing to lose, does not fear punishment or the consequences of their actions." In recent bodies of work, Kameya has explored mythologies of apocalyptism.

The artist's conception of time is cyclical, wherein the past haunts the present in new, but recognisable ways. His scenes speak to contemporary motifs of consumerism and media, but also take on the ghostly aura of what has come before.

The muted palette of Kameya’s work is a direct reflection of this enquiry. Found imagery and objects from the artist’s own personal archive are rendered in grainy, or ‘dusty’ tones, through the use of clay powder. This gives them the appearance of a memento or an excavated window into which imprints of time and process are imbued. Indeed, his assemblages have an almost archaeological quality, since they are compiled of disparate images, which come together to form a suggestive whole.

The tableaux of Kameya’s individual paintings do not act as fixed narratives, instead forming an architectural language – a symbolic vernacular onto which the viewer can project their own associations. Though they begin from autobiographical prompts, they take on a universal resonance. While the troubled sociopolitical history of Peru is specific, it also raises questions which are pertinent on a wider scale. Kameya reveals to us the ways in which our collective memory is shaped by the historical and cultural narratives that we absorb.

all images © the gallery and the artist(s)