In her work, the artist challenges the  traditional conception and structure of painting. In the gallery’s two  outer rooms, visible from the street, de la Cruz stages a selection of  nearly monochromatic white-toned objects and wall-based works. With her  display of white and offwhite shapes and surfaces, the artist suggests a  fresh start to 2021: visitors may regard the purist works as a means of  purification and as a starting point for further associations—“Art is  very important and more important than ever to give people a sense of  perspective. It is really very important. It can also be a relief from  the world.”

At the center of the gallery’s nine-meter-high Corner Space is the work Transfer (Ivory),  a sofa burdened by a white pedestal. The object is supplemented by a  chair that supports the other end of the minimalist, yet bulky, object.  The monolith, balanced between the two pieces of furniture, is hand  painted in an ivory shade of white, as are the accompanying works on the  walls. This creates a somewhat familiar domestic, yet comfortless  setting that reinforces the distinction between inside and outside. A  clear separation of public urban life—loud and colorful—and a cool  modernist ensemble that seems quiet and still, like a living room bathed  in different shades of white. The barren atmosphere could be straight  out of a scene from Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi films.

Angela de la Cruz’s work uses painting and its components as a  sculptural object rather than merely a two-dimensional image. She  focuses on renegotiating prevailing notions of painting, deconstructing  canvas and stretcher for this purpose. De la Cruz thus partly literally  detaches the idea of the painted image from its body and its components.  In general, the corporeal plays an important role in de la Cruz’s work  as her objects, which also include found elements, frequently take on  anthropomorphic features or stances. The fact that the human figure is  always the point of reference in de la Cruz’s work becomes palpable when  the pieces of furniture, canvases, and aluminum boxes seem to crouch,  slouch, lay on the floor, or just sit on a sofa.