La Conversión de la Huella (The Conversion of the Trace) - Solange Adum Abdala

×

Expand

Solange Adum Abdala, “La Conversión de la Huella,” 2025

(Image courtesy Solange Adum Abdala and THIS Gallery)

Opening Reception: Saturday, February 22 from noon - 4 PM. The artist will be in attendance.

THIS Gallery is thrilled to announce a solo exhibition of new work by Vancouver-based Peruvian photographer, Solange Adum Abdala.

La Conversión de la Huella (The Conversion of the Trace) explores the transformation of nature’s tangible perception through the material intervention of analog photographic images. By altering the chemical composition of the photographic medium, the project disrupts its conventional role as a representational tool, blurring the boundaries between photography and painting—two disciplines historically examined in modern and contemporary art.

The process begins with chromogenic photographic prints, which are subjected to bleach, a corrosive agent composed of alkaline salts and chlorine. This substance erases, disinfects, and removes traces, creating voids within the image. These blank spaces, or washes, are then reconstituted with pigment, introducing new visual elements into the composition. The act of erasure and replacement produces landscapes that are at once surreal, fantastical, and ominous, challenging the notion of photographic fidelity.

Conceptually, the project draws an analogy between photographic intervention and the destructive processes of climate change. Just as bleach alters the materiality of the image, human activity in the Anthropocene era has irreversibly transformed the Earth’s surface. At the same time, La Conversión de la Huella interrogates the resilience of photography as an artistic medium, questioning its longstanding association with objective representation. In this body of work, landscape is not merely perceived but reimagined—its dissolution making way for new and unexpected forms.