As if it were an infinite and swampy labyrinth, entering a painting by Marlov Barrios requires attention. If observed with meticulousness, it may be that recognized symbols or characters appear in tension or disagreement with others, or that his dense lines of tangled colors may envelop us in a sticky condition that refuses to let go of its viewer without them having discovered its secret.

With the curiosity of an obstinate child, Marlov enters into an almost possessed state and lets the stroke stray down familiar paths or invent new ones that build elaborate and precise drawings, or abstract and watery paintings. Even so, although the visual construction of his imaginary is an automatic ritual, in the artist's work there is also a deep conscious reflection on the materials, the symbolism and the icons of different times and cultures in constant collision with each other.

Behind the tensions between symbolism, such as characters from television or pop culture side by side with pre-Hispanic figures, there is much more beyond the obvious. Marlov puts in tension not only the iconography, as a lucky accident, but fricts the entire imaginary of cultures that have been dragged to the present, turning our identity into a collage of images from different sources. How can we then speak of identity if what constructs us is the disparity of these symbols? In his wood carvings, for example, the artist addresses these opposites. The characters are busts of iconic characters from American television and comics, recognized by all, which, being carved in wood, demand a ritual of craftsmanship from a non-technology-producing country that resorts to the manual elaboration of its icons; a strong contrast with the automatic and mass-produced way of commercial production. "My work is always a dialogue and a territory of friction," says the artist. And the fact is that speaking from this shaky territory as Latin America is, is the engine of all his imaginary. That is why his work is conceived from the region and is made of relationships, contrasts, alienations, imaginaries and symbologies, which although wholly referential to Guatemala and its pre-Hispanic culture, it additionally extends towards global resonances.

Because of these same qualities, when approaching a work by Marlov, all the elements must be separated and signified. For example, dissecting one of his sculptures and thinking about the symbol of the mirror that holds a comal as a Mesoamerican element and that this is covered with a white powder that simulates cocaine and above it a sculpture of a hand that refers to the Spanish tradition and the signals that drug traffickers send to warn of a kidnapping. Is not our identity built under these ideograms? We are also fragmented symbolic constructions, beings colonized multiple times by external cultures. To live in Latin America is to confront these tensions in a baroque configuration with colorful facades that conceal their true origin. The work of Marlov Barrios, then, is a visual representation, from his own assimilation, of a cultural heritage manifested and agglutinated in forms and symbologies that we acquired from an accepted colonization in contrast with the true Hispanic colonization.

That is why his paintings also carry a baroque heritage that is combined with the artist's own technique and the symbols that come to be generated among his strokes. There are several moments in his painting, and the last one leads to think the final result with the same process of digital post-production that allows to edit and return to the work again and again.

Although most of the artist's pieces in this exhibition address such heavy contrasts; the perfect balance is given by other pieces that are more detached from the artist's personal imagery and his watercolors even include poems of beautiful subtlety and doubt, while his ink drawings are complemented by playful witticisms that formulate new personal symbologies. Thus, this exhibition is a project that continues the research on the cultural clash "and how it generates multiple poetics, gestures and processes, which as a result, give way to a distorted and sharp decoder that radiates an unpostponable signal, which at times explodes in our face", as the artist mentions. Because in the end, for him, making art is a Dissident Ritual.

- Josseline Pinto