The first thing that strikes you about Mónica Naranjo Uribe's drawings is their quiet, muted color. In the dusty-pastel palette that marks all her work, reminiscent of faded wallpaper or striped ice cream, she shows the streets, storefronts and subway cars she saw during the year that she spent in Berlin, creating the book “Berlin Half-Stories”.
Unlike the countless other young artists drawn to the city as an exotic unknown, Uribe came to Berlin on a return trajectory. Though her parents are from Colombia, they were living temporarily in Berlin when she was born. But she grew up in Colombia and studied and worked in graphic design there. Then, in 2007, she was awarded a grant by the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (German Academic Exchange Service) to return to her birthplace and draw.
From the moment she arrived in Berlin, Uribe says, she was struck by a single impression of the city: a stillness, a calm, the opposite of the crowds and bustle she had expected of a major metropolis. She captured this stillness in over forty small, square drawings for her fledgling book.
The images in the book were first collected with a camera during her travels throughout the city and then brought back to the small dormitory room that was her home and studio during the one-year project. With gentle pencil strokes, she drew just the parts of the pictures that mattered to her. Superfluous cars and clutter disappeared, leaving people, dogs, peeling posters, tram tracks, worn buildings. What remains is unmistakably Berlin, but also unmistakably hers: a city of soft grays, browns and vanillas, of millions of people living side by side, each wrapped gently in his or her own solitude.
The artist is currently seeking a publisher for Berlin Half-Stories. She welcomes those interested in the book to contact her through her website.
Links:
www.half-noise.com
www.half-noise.tumblr.com
