Art Madrid'24 – NEW HORIZONS: GALLERIES BEYOND EUROPE

Yiri Arts, Oda Gallery, Collage Habana, O-Art Project y Lola & Unicorn Galleries

  The fourteenth edition of Art Madrid stands out for its marked international character. Actually, the origin of the participating galleries cross oceans and go far beyond the European continent. Among the foreign participating galleries from the General Program, stand out the Taiwanese Yiri Arts (Taipei), the South African ODA Gallery (Franschhoek), the Cuban Collage Havana (Havana), the Peruvian artistic collective O-Art Project (Lima) and the North American Lola & Unicorn (New York). Galleries also beyond Europe are some of the ones that partake the One Project program: Flux Zone (Mexico City, Mexico), Granada Gallery (Comuna, Argentina) and RV Cultura e Arte (Salvador, Brazil).

Chen Yun, "The past is like the dust on the plants I collected before", acrylic on canvas, 2018. Yiri Arts.

From Taiwan, they come the proposals of Yiri Arts, works as intimate as vitalist. Chen Yun, the most mysterious of the three artists presented, features some of his latest paintings: compositions organised in a format of diptychs or triptychs in which the states of the inner worlds are revealed. Both human figures, most of them in meditative attitudes, as well as the symbols or the objects that accompany them, reflect veiled narratives. In these stories, it is expressed much more without telling everything because you can feel the inherent tension that underlies in titles such as “Companion. Smeared faces comforting one another, leaning upon each other” (2017) or “The past is like the dust on the plants I collected before” (2018).

Guim Tió Zarraluki, "Campament", oil on linen, 2018. Yiri Arts.

On the other hand, the most extreme tensions are completely explicit in the works by Lai Wei-Yu, as shown his furious and monstrous figures entwined in eager fights. The contrast reappears in these works through the introduction of vivid and almost playful colours, especially in works like "The Fight" (2018) or "My Family" (2018), where a kind of confetti hides the traces of violence. Yiri closes his proposal for Art Madrid with works by Guim Tió Zarraluki: paintings of large stains of spot colours that offer us a place to stop to reflect; a new space where we can be able to cleanse our corrupted vision by the visual tyranny imposed by the mass media.

Andy Llanes Bultó

Serie Cuerpo Celeste (II), 2018

Oil on canvas

150 x 150cm

Daniel R. Collazo

De la serie 'Ciudades infinitas', 2018

Charcoal on canvas

100 x 130cm

The proposals of the Collage Habana’s artists stand out for their mastery of pictorial techniques and drawing over colour. It is enough to contemplate the round-format-painting that articulates the series "Celestial Body" or "Levitaciones" (2018) of Andy Llanes Bultó, intimate exercises of anatomy; the charcoal drawings of infinite cities, always exponential, always dystopian, of Daniel R. Collazo; the female, provocative and idealised portraits of Roldán Lauzán Eiras; or the more mature, hybrid investigations of Ernesto Rancaño, games of lights and shadows, dreams and nightmares, which leave a sense of suspicion when contemplating its details.

Alessandra Rebagliati

Donut Wheel, 2018

Photography

20 x 70cm

Rocío Gómez

Extrañamiento, 2017

Óleo, collage y foto sobre cartulina

75 x 110cm

In this edition, the interesting Peruvian collective O-Art Project participates for the first time, a project lead by Alessandra Rebagliati, Jessica Schneider, Carolina Bazo and Gianna Pollarolo. The four artists have been carrying out projects for more than two decades. They aim to make visible the different practices and discourses that exist in the Peruvian art scene, managing to transcend and spreading "its roots from a globalised and contemporary perspective". Together with three other artists, they present in Art Madrid a suggestive selection of works, with very different imaginaries and concerns but under a collective vision. The works of these artists stand out for their hybrid and vindictive character, as seen in the works Carolina Bazo or Alessandra Rebagliati, focused on the reconfiguration of the stereotypes associated with women or the power exerted by the patriarchy and capitalist logic in our daily work.

Jessica Schneider

Yellow Capsule, 2017

Photography

35 x 45cm

We will also see the installations of metallic fibres and the transparencies of Cristina Colichón; the attractive works of Jessica Schneider, with her mysterious capsules adrift; or the photographic distortions of Jacques Custer. On the other hand, Gianna Pollarolo works around concepts such as energy, mysticism or the origins of the collective imagination; while Rocío Gómez is more interested in semiotic issues, as shown by the use of multi-vision in her impressive audiovisual works or the enigmatic stagings of painting, collage and photography, as we see in "Extrañamiento" (2017).

Samson Mnisi

Untitled, 2018

Oil on paper

107 x 78cm

Layziehound Coka

Bring Back The Power, 2018

Mixed media on canvas

250 x 200cm

Also for the first time, ODA Gallery participates in Art Madrid, a proposal that will allow us to enter a unique artistic scene of the African continent. We must highlight the oils on paper by Samson Mnisi (Lesotho), a creator whose language of patterns, lines, symbols and colours is as personal as inspiring; the reviews, and updates, of the local shapes and icons made by Jean-Baptiste Djeka (Ivory Coast), in which he combines painting, collage and photo-assembling; and the most critical readings of the sociopolitical state of the African citizen provided by Layziehound Coka (South Africa). ODA Gallery will also present the most traditional and magical paintings of Silas Adelanke Adeoye (Nigeria), geometric figures, flat and colourful, whose masks can lead us to the fascination that so many artists of the Avant-guards felt for the ancient African art.

Fernando Daza

Círculo naranja, 2018

Paper torn by hand and glued on fabric

80 x 80cm

Finally, from the heart of New York, comes the wide selection of Lola & the Unicorn. In his space, one can enjoy the abstract explorations of three artists: Bosco Sodi, a great connoisseur of Mexican muralism, whose paintings reflect the connections between the qualities of matter, textures and their echoes in spirituality; and the latest works by the Sevillians Isabelita Valdecasas and Fernando Daza, more material and textural in the paintings of the first one, more geometric and subtle in the fabrics of the latter.

Miguel Vallinas

Raiz 37, 2015

Photography

100 x 70cm

Juan Genovés

Analogía, 2016

Giclee on Hahnemühle paper

74 x 55.5cm

The gallery will also exhibit recent works by one of the great Spanish painters, Juan Genovés - also present in the Aurora Vigil Escalera space. From his characteristic figurative style, so close to the most gestural expressionist abstraction, and using his usual zenith perspectives, one can enjoy the endless crowd scenes which obsess the indefatigable painter that much. In addition, the selection of Lola & Unicorn will include the photographs of Miguel Vallinas, portraits with a marked surrealist character in which he reflects on contemporary identity: "what man wants to be, what he thinks he is, what others think of him and what we really are."

 

“I paint in a completely free way, I don't have a plan, it's chaotic, but everything has a reason. I don't prepare anything before I start painting, what I paint is what I feel or try to communicate at that moment, so it changes a lot (from one work to another)”.

Chão limpo e o resto. Mixed media on canvas. 2023. Ana Malta. Courtesy of the artist.

Cultura Inquieta once again joins the experience of discovering and celebrating creative talent within the broad spectrum of artistic expressions present at Art Madrid'24. As a supporter of culture and contemporary art, its commitment to promoting and supporting emerging artists is reflected in a special initiative in this edition: highlighting and supporting the work of the REVELATION ARTIST of the 19th edition.

Só durmo na minha almofada. Mixed media on canvas. 2023. Ana Malta. Courtesy of the artist.

In this context, Ana Malta emerges into the contemporary art scene with a fresh voice and her own visual aesthetic. Born in Lisbon in 1996, Malta is a talented visual artist and freelance designer who has captivated the public with her distinctive approach and bold exploration of the beauty of everyday spaces through her investigations of color.

Her studies in Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon, as well as her Master's Degree in Creative Industries Management at the Catholic University of Portugal in Porto, have provided a solid foundation for her artistic practice. Currently, she also collaborates in the Communication and Production Office of Carpintarias de São Lázaro - Centro Cultural e Galeria Belo-Galsterer, showing her commitment to the cultural fabric of her community. She is also part of the artistic collective VÊS.TRÊS.

Ana Malta has been recognized in several platforms and media, including the 14th Edition of QUADRANTE, Melancia Mag and the SCROLL program of the RTP2 channel. Her participation in the book (AS)ARTISTAS - Ensaio Gráfico sobre Histórias e Práticas Artísticas no Feminino and in the April 21st Edition of Nova Awareness Club underlines her impact and relevance in the contemporary art scene.

Só um é que ganha. Mixed media on canvas. 2023. Ana Malta. Courtesy of the artist.

Ana Malta's work is characterized by her exploration of color, patterns, composition, and texture. These elements are not only vehicles of her plastic and visual expression, but also embody an intimate dialogue between aesthetic restlessness and the transformation of error into opportunity.

It is exciting to see Ana Malta make her debut at Art Madrid'24, represented by Galeria São Mamede (STAND B3). Her presence promises to further enrich the artistic experience of the event, inviting the public to approach the visually captivating and conceptually stimulating universe that the artist creates to narrate the chaos she rearranges in shapes and colors.

Não fico pendurada. Mixed media on canvas. 2023. Ana Malta. Courtesy of the artist.

In a world in constant movement, Ana Malta reminds us of the importance of experimentation and continuous exploration in the search for authentic and sincere artistic expression.

Her work has been REVEALED to us in the 19th edition of ART MADRID, thanks to the precise point of view of CULTURA INQUIETA as a testimony of the transforming power of art. In her hands, the entropy of forms brings us the possible memory of an endless summer; the luminosity of the sun becomes the caress of everyday life; we may even be surprised by the formula of happiness turned into a companion animal.

Ana Malta's pieces combines the restlessness of a space that appears to be in a state of chaos with the delicate synesthesia of vibrating at the velocity of light, nuances, lines and colors in her paintings.