Airs of Freedom Exhibition, New York – Rosana Auqué

(Instituto Italiano di Cultura, New York – December 16–21, 2024)

Airs of Freedom marked a pivotal moment in Rosana Auqué’s career — her first major solo exhibition in New York. Presented at the Italian Cultural Institute, the show unveiled over thirty new paintings, each one a meditation on transformation and the poetic nature of the ephemeral.

Through this collection, Auqué invited viewers to witness the instant when fragility becomes rebirth. Her signature balloons, once symbols of joy and innocence, burst into flowers and ethereal landscapes — metaphors for the human soul transcending limitation. In this act of release, she transforms loss into creation, absence into beauty, silence into light.

The exhibition explored the delicate balance between existence and impermanence, echoing the poetry of María Mercedes Carranza, whose verses speak of transition and the tender melancholy of change. Each painting was conceived as a stanza — part of a larger visual poem about freedom, surrender, and the cyclical nature of life.

“I painted them with my hands and my soul.”

Rosana worked primarily with gesso, acrylics, and luminous varnishes on large wooden panels, applying layers with intuitive gestures that evoke both control and spontaneity. Her chromatic palette — radiant yet delicate — mirrors the shifting light of dawn and dusk. Each balloon, landscape, or flower emerges from meditative repetition, where emotion guides the brush more than technique.

The process becomes ritual: painting as an act of letting go, as freedom itself.

“I believe freedom is not about escaping, but about transforming. Every burst, every change, is a chance to begin again.”

Rosana Auqué

Questions about the exhibition “Airs of Freedom”