Paulo Nunes-Arte Contemporânea, Bea Villamarín, Cornión y Montsequi galleries

Stopping, taking some time and being surprised. It seems a triviality but, either by imperatives or obligations, commitments or frustrated desires and, above all, by that epidemic of the 21st century that is the lack of time, usually, we do not calmly appreciate the things that surround us. This common situation especially affects the contemplation of art, which is also perverted in this heterogeneous era of frivolous cultural tourism, "biennalism", blockbusters and surreptitious advertising.

Ana Pais Oliveira

Ar livre #8, 2018

Técnica mixta sobre tela y contraplacado marítimo

135 x 200cm

In the proposal that the Paulo Nunes-Contemporary Art (Vila Franca de Xira) Gallery presents, fictions and realities are equally emphasized. On the one hand, the nostalgic sculptures by Manuel Patinha and paintings by Ana Pais Oliveira, these last ones seducing us into the indeterminate scenarios of abstract forms, particularly strange and seductive. At first glance, the spaces imagined by the artist are icy, cold, but through a deeper observation, you can also reach a greater sense of warmth. Everything depends on what it transmits to each viewer.

Mário Macilau

Sem título 1, 2017

Hahnemühle paper

80 x 120cm

Rui Dias Monteiro

Nas paredes e no chão, 2015

Photography

15 x 20cm

On the other hand, specific realities are expressed in this gallery’s booth with the work by Mário Macilau, an autochthonous photographer from Maputo (Mozambique) whose objective is to make the sociopolitical situation of his country visible. A perfect and necessary example within the debate of Otherness, because "the Other" can, must and knows how to represent itself. Beautiful and classic work in black and white that tells us about the current circumstances of millions of people, something that we sense or see from a comfortable distance but that we really do not know. Another reality is that reflected by the also photographer Rui Dias Monteiro, more interested in the detail, the fragment, in the intuitive. Any stone in the middle of the road can initiate or end a story, and surely the literary side of this artist is what explains that his gaze stops in these motives.

Alejandro Quincoces

Polluted cityscape, 2018

Oil on board

125 x 195cm

Carlos Tárdez

Tasador, 2017

Polychrome resin

10 x 10cm

Another type of especially narrative realism is the one cultivated by Alejandro Quincoces, an artist presented by the Bea Villamarín (Gijón) gallery. His work, which is located in the mysteriously natural and urban settings, is usually characterized by being very cinematographic, usually melancholic and even catastrophic; even in their broader urban views, dystopian future worlds are predicted, but not because of this are impossible. The world of another of the artists, Carlos Tárdez, is explicitly more critical; everything that his small format sculptures in polychrome resin have, becomes enormous in its provocative forms and satirical messages. Perhaps it is precisely the size what gives his works the greatest impact, both visually and emotionally.

Mònica Subidé

Los hijos del rey bufón y sus buitres, 2018

Oil, pencil and collage on wood

80 x 110cm

At the Villamarín's booth, you can also enjoy the work of Mònica Subidé, as rich in artistic references as in its taste for the oneiric story, both enigmatic and seductive -traits that can be appreciated twice as the artist also will be represented in the Yiri Arts space. Narratives much more hermetic are those the works by Patricia Escutia offer, a sort of palimpsests composed of notes, traces, indecipherable calligraphies that show the negation of language, the difficulties we have in our communication; abstract writing for an elusive time. Framed in abstraction is the work by Candela Muniozguren, an artist of whom the gallery will present a selection of her characteristic geometric sculpture of anchors.

Javier Victorero

En el jardín VIII, 2018

Acrylic on canvas

180 x 150cm

Also, the proposal of the Cornión (Gijón) gallery includes a solid bet for the most abstract geometric work: done by Javier Victorero. From an intense knowledge of compositional harmony and balance, the artist plays with straight lines and colour properties, in some cases intimately connecting with the creation of great geometric artists such as Eusebio Sempere. Similarly, the investigation of the materials characteristics is something he shares with the sculptor Amancio (González), more interested, though, in a kind of figurative abstraction.

Miguel Galano

Nieve en el Monticu, 2018

Oil on linen

46 x 53cm

Cornión closes its selection for Art Madrid with the painting, "atemporal and true", by Miguel Galano: a chant to the Asturian land, full of nostalgia and the most honest simplicity. These solitary and calm scenarios, invite to shelter or empathy; they are places in which we can clearly stop our accelerated vital rhythm and contemplate them from a more serene way of life.

Horacio Fernández Munizaga

Placeres, 2018

Acrylic on canvas

92 x 92cm

Rodrigo Nevsky

Apple fondo azul, 2018

Acrylic on canvas

30 x 30cm

In the Montsequi Art Gallery's (Madrid) booth there will also be a place for contemplation, especially through the bronze and iron sculpture by Mireia Serra, whose characters, as the gallerists point out, "show the beauty and the mystery of small moments full of emotions and feelings of the journey of life: women taking their time to decide at a crossroads of their lives, men enjoying their moments of relaxation, small pleasures, moments to pause... ". "Placeres" (2018), "Fuente Paraíso" (2018) or "Fuego" (2018) are some of the abstractions, vitalistic and mostly naturalistic, that Montsequi will present from the artist Horacio Fernández Munizaga. Along with his work, a selection by Rodrigo Nevsky these paintings, more aligned with contemporaneity, the kind full of marketing and icons such as the giant Apple, and that Nevsky works with a language that includes abstraction and figuration.

Let's take a moment, let's go into the specific stories and emotions proposed by the artists and then decide with more conscience whether they convince us or not. Let us rest from the weight of everyday life.

The work of Julian Manzelli (Chu) (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1974) is situated within a field of research in which art adopts methodologies close to scientific thinking without renouncing its poetic and speculative dimension. His practice is structured as an open process of experimentation, in which the studio functions as a laboratory: a space for trial, error, and verification, oriented less toward the attainment of certainties than toward the production of new forms of perception. In this sense, his work enters into dialogue with an epistemology of uncertainty, akin to philosophical traditions that understand knowledge as a process of becoming rather than closure.

Manzelli explores interstitial zones, understood as spaces of transit and transformation. These ambiguous areas are not presented as undefined but as potential—sites where categories dissolve, allowing the emergence of hybrid, almost alchemical configurations that reprogram the gaze. Geometry, far from operating as a normative system, appears tense and destabilized. His precarious constructions articulate a crossing between intuition and reason, play and engineering, evoking a universal grammar present in both nature and symbolic thought. Thus, Manzelli’s works do not represent the world but rather transfigure it, activating questions rather than offering closed answers.

Avícola. Escultura magnética. Madera, imanes, laca automotriz y acero. 45 x 25 cm. 2022.

Science and its methods inspire your process. What kinds of parallels do you find between scientific thinking and artistic creation?

Science and art are two disciplines that I believe share a great deal and are undoubtedly deeply interconnected. I am interested in that point of intersection, and although they are often placed in opposition, I think they share a common origin. Both involve a continuous search, a need for answers that stems from curiosity rather than certainty, and that often—or in many cases—leads both artists and scientists into uncomfortable, uncertain positions, pushing them out of their comfort zones. I believe this is a fundamental and very compelling aspect shared by these two disciplines, which in some way define us as human beings.

In this sense, both share experimentation as a core axis of their practice. Trial and error, testing, and the entire process of experimentation are what generate development. In my case, this applies directly to the studio: I experience it as a laboratory where different projects are developed and materials are tested. It is as if one formulates a hypothesis and then puts it to the test—materials, procedures, forms, colors—and outcomes emerge. These results are not meant to be verified, but rather, in art, I believe their function is to generate new modes of perception, new ways of seeing, and new experiences.

Receptor Lunar #01. Ensamble de Madera Reciclada torneada. 102 x 26 x 26 cm. De la serie Fuerza orgánica. 2023.

You work within the interstices between the natural and the artificial, the figurative and the abstract. What interests you about these ambiguous zones, and what kinds of knowledge emerge from them?

I have always been quite restless, and that has led me to immerse myself in different fields and disciplines. I believe there is a special richness in interstitial spaces—in movement back and forth, in circulation between media. These spaces have always drawn my attention: ambiguous places, hybrid zones. There is something of an amphibious logic here—amphibians as entities that carry and transmit information, that share, that cross boundaries and membranes. In my case, this is closely linked to what I understand as freedom, especially at a time marked by categorization, labeling, and a profound distortion of the very concept of freedom.

On another level, more metaphysical in nature, it is within the mixture—within that blending—that the living energy of creating something new appears, which is undoubtedly a fundamental aspect of what it means to be human. It is as if “one thing becomes something else outside the mold.” This interaction is necessary to break structures, to build new ones, to transmute—to undergo something almost alchemical. I believe fixation is the enemy. In a way, ambiguity is what allows us to reprogram our gaze and generate new points of view.

De la serie Naturaleza orgánica. Madera torneada recuperada de podas de sequía y rezagos de construcción. 2025.

Movement, repetition, and sequence appear as visual strategies in your work. What role does seriality play in the generation of meaning?

Movement, repetition, and sequence are very present in my work. I have a long background in animation, and in some way that interest begins to filter into the other disciplines in which I work. Thus, movement also appears in my visual art practice.

Seriality is a way of thinking about time and of introducing a certain narrative and sense of action into the work, while at the same time conditioning the viewer’s experience. It invites the viewer to try to decipher repetition as a kind of progression. I am particularly interested in more abstract forms of narrative. In this type of narrative, where there is no clear figuration, repetition begins to establish a pulse, a “beat” that marks the passage of time. What is interesting, I think, is the realization that repetition is not exactly duplication, and that what seems identical begins to mutate over time, through rhythm, or through its own unfolding history.

De la serie Naturaleza orgánica. Madera torneada recuperada de podas de sequía y rezagos de construcción. 2025.

You work with geometric and constructive systems. What role does geometry play as a symbolic language within your practice?

Geometry is present in my work in multiple forms and dimensions, generating different dynamics. Generally, I tend to put it into crisis, into tension. When one engages closely with my works, it becomes clear that constructions based on imprecise and unstable balance predominate. I am not interested in symmetry or exactness, but rather in a dynamic construction that proposes a situation. I do not conceive of geometry as a rigid system.

I believe this is where a bridge is established between the intuitive and the rational, between playfulness and engineering—those unexpected crossings. At the same time, geometry functions as a code, a language that connects us to a universal grammar present in nature, in fractals, and that undoubtedly refers to symbolism. It is there that an interesting portal opens, where the work begins to re-signify itself and becomes a process of meaning-making external to itself, entirely uncertain. The results of my works are not pieces that represent; rather, I believe they are pieces that transfigure and, in doing so, generate questions.

WIP. Madera torneada recuperada de podas de sequía y rezagos de contrucción. 2022.

To what extent do you plan your works, and how much space do you leave for the unexpected—or even for error?

In terms of planning, it depends greatly on the project and even on the day. Some projects, due to their scale or complexity, require careful planning, especially when they involve the participation of other people. In many cases, planning is undoubtedly essential.

That said, in the projects I do plan, I am always interested in leaving space for improvisation, where chance or the unfolding of the process itself can come into play. I believe this is where interesting things begin to emerge, and it is important not to let them pass by. Personally, I would find it very boring to work on pieces whose outcome I already know in advance. For me, the realization of each work is an uncertain journey; I do not know where it will lead, and I believe that is where its potential lies—not only for me, but also for the work itself and for the viewer’s experience.