Fragment of exhibition text for group show, Auf der suche nach der verlorenen Einheit. (Searching for the lost Unity), at Meno Parkas Gallery, curated by Marcello Farabegoli and Ute Burkhardt-Bodenwinkler
…”For Sofia Cruz Rocha, who is intensively involved with hermetic teachings, duality in itself plays a fundamental role in an epistemological sense. By duality, she understands opposing pairs of concepts, such as light-darkness, inspiration-apathy, or knowledge-ignorance. A concept can only be truly recognized through its negation, i.e. its absence. According to the artist, transformation is also only possible when there is duality. So it seems that movement and change would arise from dialectical tension of dual terms.
From dualities manifest all the concepts that define being to the smallest detail, from the microcosm to the macrocosm. Cruz Rocha questions these conceptual systems, especially those that shape our lives as individuals and as a human species and often turn out to be mere prejudices. Personally, for example, she would like to be perceived and realize herself beyond gender roles.
By means of hermeticism, the artist thus seeks ways to overcome the limitations of the material world and thereby regain the original, metaphysical unity on a higher level of consciousness.
In other words, it can be argued that the Apollonian rational cognition, based on the postulates of "binary" logic - self-identity, non-contradiction, and excluded third - leads to the separative analysis of being and thus to an inevitable fragmentation of the same. This fragmentation, which ultimately also leads to the so-called disenchantment of the world, is, however, in itself a step in the formation of individual consciousness within the globalized paradigms of modernity that is as inevitable as it is painful. Thanks to hermeticism, on the other hand, man can supposedly recover that unified dimension that lies hidden behind the comprehensible, explainable and justifiable. Cruz Rocha lives this hermetic process, which can also be metaphorically represented as an alchemical transformation, and ultimately expresses it with her artistic work on an aesthetic-conceptual level.
In her paintings from the work cycle “Sky” (2021), Cruz Rocha depicts a blue, serene, slightly cloudy sky. The clouds have no other meaning than to reveal the sky as itself. A black velvet more or less covers the canvases from the right side, as if it were a theater curtain that is opening or closing. Heaven definitely symbolizes what in a religious context is called paradise or the garden of Eden. In general, however, it is about the interplay between darkness and light, because without one the other would not be recognizable. How much shadow is necessary, the artist asks herself, in order to recognize our more luminous side, to bring it to light or to make it flourish? It is also remarkable how Cruz Rocha applies the acrylic paints classically with her hand and the brush, but then also with the airbrush technique and thus gives the sky a somewhat artificial, almost digital quality. For the velvet, too, the artist decided on a mixture of natural fabric and synthetic material because the black color appears all the darker, more intense, and shinier. A question shines through these works that seem to be important for all three artists, the one between naturalness and artificiality, which continues to shape our existence. The skeptical viewer could interpret these works in such a way that they also aim at a certain "show effect" of the Eden garden: according to the motto "Not everything that glitters is gold", they invite us to take a closer look so that we won't be blinded by a supposed paradise and lose sight of the real truth, which often manifests itself in a modest and unpretentious way.”