Saenger Galería presents the first solo exhibition in Mexico by French artist Rose Barberat, Train, Breathe and Perform. Hosted in the Project Room, this exhibition brings a new series of paintings conceived as objects of contemplation which narrate the world.

Rose Barberat’s work is an invitation to see painting as a link to cinema, fiction, and storytelling in addition, her paintings depict contemporary dystopias creating a poetic, dreamlike dimension. The images offer a plurality of readings and interpretations. In addition, color plays a role in altering the initial impression created by the represented scene. With a literary background, Barberat’s work places strong emphasis on details – much like the use of close-ups in photography and film – and it is precisely these details and framings that form the basis for the stories told within her paintings, resembling snapshots that suspend time.

In this sense following her experience during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Rose Barberat chooses to create – through painting – a collection of stories inspired by the event, portraying intimate moments that take place before the sporting competition. These are moments – seconds – in which disconnecting from the world becomes essential, allowing for deep concentration and self-awareness – instants of profound vulnerability among the chaos of competition.

Under this circumstance, the painter says: I’ve created these paintings in a dominant light turquoise green, reminiscent of swimming pools and the artificial colors found on sports fields. It’s also a fairly soft pastel color, contrasting with the idea of intensity and nervousness associated with sporting competition. It reveals the vulnerability behind strength… This moments between or before competitions. I’m thinking of a team meeting and concentrating, of a gymnast training, of portraits of swimmers concentrating, of the steps on a tennis court. These in-between moments hold a quiet tension, a kind of poetry… They reveal the discipline, the focus, the confidence, the team spirit, the inner connection and solitude that often go unnoticed behind the spectacle.

Sport is often associated with fury, passion, and performance – emotions often linked to the colors red and orange – while we tend to forget that in sport, as in art, the real competition is not against others, but against ourself: to transcend our own limits, not those of others. The true challenge, then, is internal, and it begins with the act of holding our breath and suspending time before diving into the water, leaping onto the track, or taking the first stride. Rose Barberat’s painting plays with this sense of narrative immersion and experience through color freezing the moment through her work.

— Manuel Tuda