Art Madrid'23 – PAPERS AND FABRICS: TRADITIONAL MATERIALS FOR A NEW CONTEMPORARY LANGUAGE

A new generation of artists returns to work with materials to check their expressive potential. With less interventionist proposals, there is a return to exploration, to the search for the aesthetic and creative possibilities of the raw material. As a result, there are works with a significant visual load that convey very diverse themes. The discourse acquires another depth, more material and plastic, condensed in the use of fabrics and layers of paper. We bring you three authors who conceive creation as an intimately manual process, who work with materials in a physical and contact way to build their own language away from the traditional discipline.

Victoria Santesmases

Palabras que hieren II, 2018

Pintura, clavos

90 x 110cm

Victoria Santesmases

Nidos, 2014

Cortes en papel Creyser

37 x 41cm

Victoria Santesmases

Palabras que hieren III, 2018

Paint on paper

90 x 110cm

The work of Victoria Santesmases is very representative of the double life that materials may have. Her latest project develops around pain, its presence and its plastic representation in an abstract and essentialist way. In these cases, a simple stroke of colour, the contrasts of textures and the folds or grooves marked on the paper refer to the representation of the wound, as a tangible element that conveys the sensation of pain, be it physical or emotional. With this subtle work that declines any excess to focus only on the detail, the bare material retains a communicative potential of great impact, where words are superfluous and where the interpretation of the spectator completes the piece to provide its own personal and intimate meaning. Santesmases synthesises in her pieces, where the colour is hardly visible, deep emotions with a simple, clean and plastic proposal that perforates the papers and the layers, opens, bends and tears them in an attempt to transmit the impression that the deep feelings leave, there where no one enters.

Fernando Daza

Círculo naranja rayado, 2018

Paper cut by hand and glued on fabric

50 x 50cm

Fernando Daza

Cuadro negro sobre círculo rojo, 2016

Paper cut by hand and glued on fabric

100 x 100cm

Fernando Daza

Círculo blanco y negro rayado, 2018

Paper cut by hand and glued on fabric

75 x 75cm

Fernando Daza is another artist focused on work on paper to recreate patterns and motifs that refer us to the oriental aesthetic, with a right balance between colour and shape. With his technique, pieces acquire a volume that comes out of the plane, a three-dimensional aspect composed of slashed cut-offs that live together creating waves and modulations. The game of light and shadow, the cleanliness of the contours, the neatness of the compositions, make the work of Daza an exquisite aesthetic proposal. But beyond the simple geometry and the structures of his artwork, this artist conveys a deep feeling of peace and stillness that feeds from the Zen-Shui philosophy and projects towards the viewer. Also, the superposition of layers and subtle changes of colour remind us of natural elements of the landscape, the flow of water, the petals of flowers, or the plumage of birds.

Pierre Louis Geldenhuys

Messier 81 Galaxy, 2018

Teselación, seda salvaje y caja de luz (rosa) (obra enmarcada)

80 x 80cm

Pierre Louis Geldenhuys

Triangulum Galaxy, 2018

Teselación, seda salvaje y caja de luz (blanco) (obra enmarcada)

80 x 80cm

Pierre Louis Geldenhuys

Hidroponic life cycle I, 2018

Teselación, seda tornasolada y caja de luz (obra enmarcada)

110 x 110cm

In the use of materials in a more manual way the career of Pierre Louis Geldenhuys highlights. This artist makes of fabrics his centre of work, creating geometric patterns that gain depth when displayed on light boxes. The backlighting of these compositions enhances the colour of the silks, defines the shadow spaces, the lines of the drawing and the textures of the material. The work of Geldenhuys has much in common with Origami. With a delicate design work, the fabrics surrender to the artist's master hand, which distributes folds to generate new shapes without the need for threads or seams. In the same way, this ancient oriental technique constructs figures from paper, creates volumes, contours with a work very similar to that of this artist. His monochrome pieces transmit a smooth balance and serenity, with patterns that, from the geometry, remind us of the plants in bloom, the bristling surface of the sea, the swirls of wind and the edges of the precious stones.

 

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.