Liquitex, leading brand in acrylics and collaborator of # ArtMadrid18 launches a new range of cadmium-free colors with the same performance as acrylics with cadmium but safer for the artist and the environment. Do you join the challenge?

Liquitex cadmium free

Since its creation in 1955, Liquitex has partnered with artists to ensure constant evolution and innovation. As there is not a single opinion about the damage that can potentially be caused by cadmium pigments, Liquitex has chosen to offer both alternatives in parallel, so that artists can choose based on their personal preferences. ColArt, in constant search for safer formulations, (already they did it with the health and environmental implications of lead and stopped using white lead pigments in their formulations) it thus becomes the first brand in the market to launch an alternative to cadmium paints with a performance comparable to that of the original cadmium paints, and responds to the needs of artists who care more about health and enviroment safety issues.

Liquitex cadmium free

Throughout 3 years, a team of chemists has evaluated a range of pigments available to develop 7 new colors that respect our health and the environment: Light yellow, medium yellow, yellow dark, orange, light red, medium red and dark red, which offer the same resistance to light and vitality as classic cadmium paints and have the Approved Product Seal of the Art and Creative Materials Institute Institute (ACMI), that identifies safe art materials, that is, that the products that carry them have been evaluated by qualified toxicologists and labeled according to federal and state legislation.

Liquitex cadmium free

But, in addition to the toxicological test, it was essential to be tested by artists, the users. Liquitex identified regular users of acrylic paint and in particular of cadmium colors to carry out a series of tests (light resistance, longevity, pure tone of color, brightness, viscosity ...) Each artist received two sets of identical colors, one with genuine cadmium paints and one with cadmium-free paints. The tests were blind, without the artists knowing how one set of paintings differed from the other. They were given a month to work with both games and compare. They were also given a diary in which to write down observations during the evaluation period, as well as an exhaustive questionnaire at the end. None identified the fact that one of the two sets contained cadmium-free paints.

Liquitex wants artists to experience first-hand that the performance of alternative colors free of cadmium is truly comparable. Do you want to try this new CADMIUM FREE range? Do you want to receive one of its "blind tests"? Then enter the link and participate in the challenge: here

Liquitex cadmium free

In the year 2020 in the heart of Barcelona a wandering gallery was born, the same one that in February 2021 would debut at Art Madrid with an exhibition proposal focused on contemporary portraits; with this subject matter it would manage to create a powerful dialogue between artwork and audience and make the seal Inéditad remain in the history of the event that contained it.

Jean Carlos Puerto. Protección. Oil and copper leaf on wood. 60 x 48. 2021. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Since that first time and until today, the wandering gallery has managed to build projects on otherness, has repositioned in the spotlight the discourses on the LGTBIQ+ collective, has consolidated a group of artists who share its principles of resilience and empathy and the best thing is that it continues to bet from the professionalism and commitment to give voice to the difference.

Claudio Petit-Laurent.. El Joven de la Perla. Oil on wood. 30 x 30 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Inéditad Gallery, thanks to its founder Luis López, its collaborators and the infinite possibilities manifested in the works of the artists it represents, is a gallery that has demonstrated its capacity and courage to stimulate the sensibility of the public through art and seduce a generation that moves between the glass window and the analogical story. Inéditad is a nomadic gallery that has gathered around it a community of artists and has moved the context with exhibition projects that think about LGTBIQ+ art without prejudices.

Pepa Salas Vilar. Las marcas del arcoiris. Oil on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 2022. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Pride and Prejudice was inaugurated. An exhibition that brings together the works of sixteen artists: Abel Carrillo, Alex Domènech, Carlos Enfedaque, Silvia Flechoso, Jamalajama, Daniel Jaén, Claudio Petit-Laurent, Jean Carlos Puerto, Fernando Romero, Pablo Rodríguez, Pepa Salas Vilar, Jack Smith, Pablo Sola, Bran Sólo, Elia Tomás and Utürüo. Painting, illustration, photography and digital art are the manifestations that bring into dialogue around fifty neatly threaded pieces, in a discursive line that discusses such a latent phenomenon as discrimination. To achieve this, the artists invited to the exhibition question themselves whether: Does discrimination exist within the LGTBIQ+ collective?

Pride and Prejudice Official Poster. Image courtesy of the gallery.

With approaches on and from the body, the proposal invites to celebrate diversity, proposes to question and self-question the prejudices and attitudes of society against the collective. Pride and Prejudice is a space for dialogue about the constructs imposed on us by society. It is also an oasis in which to deconstruct with tolerance and respect the subjectivities that sometimes prevent us from approaching the production of the participating artists, simply because "the beautiful" does not fit in an androgynous body. The subjugation of stereotypes are pressed with determination to find the beauty of diversity in other palpable facets of reality.

Pablo Sola. All men are dogs. Photography. 2014. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Throughout these three years Inéditad has stimulated the vindictive projection towards bad practices, has questioned estates around the LGTBIQ+ body and the most admirable thing, is that these capacities have resurfaced around the dialogue and the visual narrative of the stories that are told from the visual: Artworks that are people, art that is, per se, humanity. Overcome impositions and accept what is different in order to continue fighting against homophobia, biphobia, lesbophobia or transphobia and defend the equal rights that all the acronyms of the collective deserve in our community.

That's Pride and Prejudice: One creature, the happiest in the world. And maybe other projects and other people have said it - or felt it - before, but none so fairly.

Silvia Flechoso. Hola, soy maricón. Oil on canvas. 73 x 54 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

From June 8th until June 22nd you can visit Pride and Prejudice. Carrer de Palau núm. 4. Canal Gallery space. Barcelona.