Galeria-Alcazar

Curriculum

Jose Cháfer – Cuerpo y AlmaGalería Álvaro Alcázar2023-05-19T11:35:28+00:00

BAD 2023

Bordeaux, 4 – 7 May 2023

For its second edition, Álvaro Alcázar Gallery will participate once again at BAD Fair (Bordeaux + Art + Design), presenting a selection of works by various of its Spanish and international artists (Rafael Canogar, Peter Krauskopf, Juan Garaizabal, David Nash, Nigel Hall, Kepa Garraza, Antonio Murado, Eduardo Arroyo).

Dossier

BAD 2023Galería Álvaro Alcázar2023-05-05T15:13:56+00:00

Abstract exhibition

ABSTRACT – John Holland Gallery, Lepe, Huelva

1 April – 26 May

From the 1st of April to the 26th of May, Alvaro Alcázar is curating the exhibition Abstract at John Holland Gallery in Lepe, Huelva.

The path of abstraction, beyond the canonical European avant-garde of the 20th century, has led artists to express themselves by experimenting different techniques and materials. What this exhibition shows is that there is a multiplicity of ways of approaching the concept of abstraction, some focused on space and light, others on the technique itself, or simply pursuing a particular aesthetic. But beyond formal pretensions, most of the artists in this exhibition endow their works with a deep content, paintings and sculptures that speak to us about their author’s feelings, of his relationship with nature, or of his own existence.

It is a heterogeneous mix of artists, all represented by the gallery, who work in different disciplines, such as sculpture in the case of David Nash or Nigel Hall, painting on canvas in the case of Rebeca Plana, board for Guillem Nadal, or paper for Cristina Babiloni. We also find heterogeneity in the nationalities of the artists, as the Spanish artists are joined by British artists such as Nash or Hall, or German artists like Wolfgand Flad and Krauskopf. Nor are the different careers of our artists uniform, since authors such as Rafael Canogar, Murado or Edmondson have decades of experience in the Spanish and international art scene, while others such as José Cháfer or Rebeca Plana, or Cristina Babiloni represent the gallery’s firm commitment to emerging art.

Catalogue

Abstract exhibitionGalería Álvaro Alcázar2023-03-31T10:43:44+00:00

Abstract

ABSTRACT

1 April – 26 May

From the 1st of April to the 26th of May, Alvaro Alcázar is curating the exhibition Abstract at John Holland Gallery in Lepe, Huelva.

The path of abstraction, beyond the canonical European avant-garde of the 20th century, has led artists to express themselves by experimenting different techniques and materials. What this exhibition shows is that there is a multiplicity of ways of approaching the concept of abstraction, some focused on space and light, others on the technique itself, or simply pursuing a particular aesthetic. But beyond formal pretensions, most of the artists in this exhibition endow their works with a deep content, paintings and sculptures that speak to us about their author’s feelings, of his relationship with nature, or of his own existence.

It is a heterogeneous mix of artists, all represented by the gallery, who work in different disciplines, such as sculpture in the case of David Nash or Nigel Hall, painting on canvas in the case of Rebeca Plana, board for Guillem Nadal, or paper for Cristina Babiloni. We also find heterogeneity in the nationalities of the artists, as the Spanish artists are joined by British artists such as Nash or Hall, or German artists like Wolfgand Flad and Krauskopf. Nor are the different careers of our artists uniform, since authors such as Rafael Canogar, Murado or Edmondson have decades of experience in the Spanish and international art scene, while others such as José Cháfer or Rebeca Plana, or Cristina Babiloni represent the gallery’s firm commitment to emerging art.

AbstractGalería Álvaro Alcázar2023-03-31T10:05:33+00:00

David Nash – Recent Works

David Nash

Recent Works

26 January – march 2023

On January 26th, Gallery Alvaro Alcázar will present a solo show dedicated to the British artist David Nash (b. 1945, UK), an exhibition that addresses the most recent production of this renowned artist based in Wales. The show presents different disciplines, highlighting the sculptural work, both in wood and in bronze and iron, as well as drawing on paper. The 24 works presented here, in small and large formats, are arranged inside the gallery in an apparently chaotic way that inevitably reminds us of a natural forest.

David Nash, with a career spanning over 40 years, is considered one of the main representatives of British Land Art. Wood; in particular the tree itself, is his main working material. For Nash, using the tree entails enormous symbolism. Due to its density, growth and proliferation, the tree finds a parallel with life itself, and its structure, made up of roots, trunk and branches, allude to three worlds; the subterranean, the terrestrial and the celestial. Nash investigates the morphology of the tree, the natural characteristics of its wood, as well as the mutations produced by the hand of man. To this end, the artist has been trained as a tree expert, studying the morphology of each species he works with, mainly redwoods, oaks, beech wood or maple wood. The wooden works presented here give a good example of this and, in fact, they only come from wood from trees that have fallen naturally or have been felled due to age or disease. From these felled trees emerge forms such as eggs, (Opened Scaled Egg), columns (Squark Column or Lined Beach Column), domes, spheres and pyramids (Flare), some of his most characteristic forms.

In addition to wood, the exhibition presents half a dozen sculptures in bronze, a material that Nash began to work with in the 1990s and whose treatment again alludes to wood, as in King and Queen III, Red Column and Black Cairn. The use of this material was motivated by the artist’s desire to preserve forms for posterity without interfering with the physical condition of the original wooden objects. Nash also appreciates the material’s capacity for transformation when heated and melted. Iron, also present in this exhibition, is formed by one of nature’s most elemental processes and is extracted at high temperatures, something which is highly appreciated by the artist.

Furthermore, charcoal has played an important role in Nash’s artistic work since the early 1980s, whether in wooden pieces that have been charred or in bronze sculptures that allude to the wooden ones, or, as in this case, in the drawings that accompany the sculptures. Drawing has always been an important element in David Nash’s production and is also used to document his entire creative process. His technique consists of applying the raw pigment directly to the paper, incorporating halos of colour around the main form. Although charcoal black predominates, he sometimes incorporates other tones from nature, which allude, for example, to the changing colour of oak leaves depending on the month or the season of the year, as in Oak Leaves Through May, where he goes from orange to yellow to bright green.

This exhibition is a unique opportunity to approach the work of an international artist of such importance, whose work has not been exhibited monographically in our country for more than half a decade and where the monumentality of the works on display will leave no one indifferent.

Catálogo

Listado de obras

David Nash – Recent WorksGalería Álvaro Alcázar2023-01-25T11:26:43+00:00

ARCO 2023

Madrid, february, 2023

The Álvaro Alcázar gallery participates, once again since its foundation in 2006, at the new edition of the ARCO fair. On this occasion, the proposal revolves around a central work, “The Best Horse in the World”, painted by Eduardo Arroyo in 1965 and which winks at the present day, due to the recent death of Queen Elizabeth II of England. It is an impressing equestrian portrait through which Arroyo enacts, with the great irony that characterizes him, as an old-fashioned court painter, ridiculing who has exercised dominion over the British people. The painter also makes fun of the propagandistic function of art, which has tried to picture political leaders throughout history.

The other pieces exhibited are all based on the tonalities of this main work. This year, the gallery has decided to give special prominence to sculpture, a strong presence category in this exhibition. These works range from small format, as in the case of Kepa Garraza, who has converted in three dimensions one of his famous “demonstrators”, or Mari Puri Hierro, who once again displays the “Blue Bilbao” in a bronze sculpture. Another bronze sculpture is the monumental one by David Nash, one of the most relevant protagonists of British Land Art. The intense red and the verticality of the figure stand out against the horizontality and sinuosity of the work of José Cháfer, who has made for this occasion a unique piece in solid birch wood. Another sculptor, Juan Garaizabal, experiments new techniques in “Fenêtre D’Ainay”, a window fragment inspired by the above-mentioned French château. Lastly, the work of Andreu Alfaro, one of the great sculptors of the second half of the 20th century and precursor of Spanish minimalism, is the finishing touch to the list of artists presented by the gallery in this edition.

Along with the sculptures, the stand is dotted with numerous paintings, mostly in small format. This year the great new feature is the Cuban painter Ariel Cabrera, whose work can be admired during the monographic exhibition that the gallery is going to dedicate to him at the end of March. Cabrera is joined by another figurative painter, José Luis Serzo, an excellent illustrator, who presents an erotic drawing on a metal plate. Guillem Nadal, usually attached to abstraction, also joins figuration with a panel from his Miralls series, representing a skull. The very opposite happens for Simon Edmondson, who has chosen on this occasion to move his painting to abstraction and opt for an intense chromatic range. Rafael Canogar, meanwhile, presents an acrylic on methacrylate in black and white, typical of the artist’s last period. The color blue is the common feature between the work of the Valencian artist Rebeca Plana and the German Peter Krauskopf, the first by using expressive brushstrokes and the second by focusing on the process and materiality of the painting. Another great artist, Nacho Criado, a pioneer in Spanish conceptual art, makes his particular tribute to Rothko. Finally, two highly acclaimed artists, Luis Canelo and Antonio Murado, focus on organic paintings.

In parallel to the stand, the gallery presents a Solo Project by Cristina Babiloni, whose work centers on the theme of the sea, a clear reference to the theme chosen by ARCO for this year’s edition. For Babiloni, painting is a way of expressing her concern for the degradation of the oceans by human action. The seabed is a constant in his production, as it can be seen in the works presented.

List of Works

Solo Project by Cristina Babiloni

ARCO 2023Galería Álvaro Alcázar2023-03-31T10:54:13+00:00

Kepa Garraza: “Nuevo monumentalismo. We just want to set the world on fire”

KEPA GARRAZA:

NUEVO MONUMENTALISMO. WE JUS WANT TO SET THE WORLD ON FIRE

November 3rd, 2022 – January 12th, 2023

The opening of our next exhibition will take place on November 3rd. We will present the new exhibition of Kepa Garraza that revolves around his two new projects New monumentalism and We just want to set the world on fire. Both series present a fictitious reality that invites the viewer to stop and reflect and to question, on the one hand, the nature of the monument, its raison d’être and its usefulness, and on the other, how social conflicts are currently represented and the role played by the media.

New Monumentalism is his most recent project. It invites the viewer to reflect on the function of the public monument within the urban environment, as well as to ask questions related to the representation of power and authority in our collective imagination. To this end, he has devised a game of substitution that invites the viewer to rethink concepts related to the very nature of the monument.

We just want to set the world on fire is a series that emerged as a consequence of the wave of protests that swept the world after the lifting of restrictions following the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. These protests were widespread and seemingly spontaneous. A wave of indignation and anger that spread unchecked to all corners of the globe. Revolts caused by the widespread impoverishment of large sectors of the world’s population and the ineffectiveness of many governments to take care of their most basic needs.

Kepa Garraza: “Nuevo monumentalismo. We just want to set the world on fire”Galería Álvaro Alcázar2022-11-07T09:09:25+00:00

ESTAMPA 2022

13th – 16th October 2022

Stand #5C03

Alvaro Alcazar gallery is once again participating in the Estampa Fair, held in Madrid from 13th to 16th October. For this edition, 17 artworks have been selected and will be located at stand #5C03.

Among the artists present are Cristina Babiloni, who through her painting Zale (2020) immerses us in her oceanic world full of life, Peter Krauskopf, with his abstract artwork in which he shows his mastery of light and colour, Guillem Nadal, who makes us follow with the eyes those hypnotic grooves with which he recreates the landscapes of the mind, José Luis Serzo, with a select choice from his series Las Tentaciones de Courbet, Kepa Garraza, who makes us reflect on the representation of the Power in occidental culture, Mari Puri Herrero, who invites us to enter her dreamlike world in which nature predominates, and the british artist Simon Edmondson, with his River Dream (2018-2022), through which, with his expressionist language, he takes us back to a nostalgic past.

There will also be sculptures by the artists Nacho Criado, with his minimalist piece Homenaje a Rothko (1970), José Cháfer with his famous wooden sculptures through which he tries to reach a point of balance and movement, and Juan Garaizabal, with his duo of sculptures À moi (2022) and À toi (2022) in which the different materials mastered by the artist are fused.

The guest artists are Andrei Roiter, who uses found and discarded objects to create poetic paintings full of meaning, Matthew Benedict, an artist who moves within realist figuration and who on this occasion brings us his iconic Witch Hazel (2007) and, finally, Jorge Barbi, whose sculptural pieces have been conceived through objects found in the countryside.

ESTAMPA 2022Galería Álvaro Alcázar2022-10-14T09:43:34+00:00

Art on Paper 2022

6th – 9th October

Stand #45

Álvaro Alcázar Gallery participates for the first time in the third edition of the Art on Paper Fair held in Brussels from 6th to 9th October. Located at Stand #45, you will find the 25 main works of this fair. Made in different techniques, all of them on paper.

The gallery’s artists present are Eduardo Arroyo, with his famous work inspired by Carmen Amaya and the episode that took place at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York, Rebeca Plana, with a small section of her abstract series representing the 12 months of the year, Kepa Garraza, with his striking images that make us reflect on the representation of power in occidental culture, José Luis Serzo, with his strong symbolic and timeless images, and Ariel Cabrera, who recently joined the gallery’s staff and presents us with scenes in which he mixes History and fiction in 19th century Cuba.

Art on Paper 2022Galería Álvaro Alcázar2022-10-11T08:32:12+00:00

KIAF SEOUL 2022

2 – 5 of September 2022

Stand# S11

The Alvaro Alcázar Gallery presents in this edition of Kiaf Seoul some works by the artist of the Rafael Canogar Gallery.

The origin of the work exhibited in this fair is to be found in 2020, coinciding with the confinement that the artist spent at his home on the coast of southern Spain. There, with almost no materials, he began to explore with different supports acquired almost randomly over the Internet. One of them was acetate plastic, which resulted in paintings with a one- or two-tone paper base, with a sheet of acetate laid on top, on which the artist traces a more matteric horizontal line.

This model, created with paper and acetate, he later took it to large format by using methacrylate, where the artist works on the front and back. But this aesthetic also carries a strong symbolic charge, as for him it represents landscapes of sky-earth and earth-air, where the imprint of man is evident through the brushstrokes.

All of Canogar’s work of the last two years follows this same line, showing how the artist, at 86 years of age, has been able to renew himself. The painter, who began his career at the end of the 1950s as a founding member of the Grupo el Paso, returns here to the search for essentiality that moved abstract expressionism and informalism at the time. He has recently emphasised his desire to return to working with minimal elements in order to enhance his radical nature, as he did at the height of the Spanish avant-garde. He thus returns to his origins, closing the circle he began to trace back in the 1950s.

KIAF SEOUL 2022Galería Álvaro Alcázar2022-11-07T12:58:10+00:00

Peter Krauskopf “Shadowpieces”

APERTURA MADRID GALLERY WEEKEND 2022

SHADOWPIECES

8 – 11 Septiembre 2022

Shadowpieces is an exhibition of works spanning the past three years of the abstract painter Peter Krauskopf’s practice. Instead of presenting a concluded body of paintings, the artist has opted for a conscious confrontation of subjects he deals with in his oeuvre. In earlier works, dense forms and seemingly computer-generated gradients illuminate or obscure each other, manipulating a central motif of painting itself. Newer canvasses are testament to a more conceptual interrogation on the character of color and its depths: the luscious, thickly applied oil colors are successively layered, only to be unearthed again by the painter with formal precision. Peter Krauskopf’s pictorial cosmos unfolds in the tension between the virtually algorithmic control he wields over his craft and the unpredictable nature inherent in his medium.

Shadowpieces refers to the spaces of light and dark left behind by Krauskopf in his works: his technique creates fields from which light appears to seep, and others into which it seems to plunge. However, the title does not hide the artist’s intuitive preference for the shadow as an agent. With their plasticity, Krauskopf’s paintings inescapably assign one side or the other to the space in front of them. Most of the time, the painter — and later the viewer — is cast into a position from which the light appears to emanate from beyond the canvas.

Peter Krauskopf’s works are abstract, but the non-figurative is constantly fed by the artist’s everyday experiences. Through painting, his intuitions return to reality as genuine images. To complicate the frontier between abstraction and fiction is an intentional choice in this process of reconstruction. The same holds true for the short texts, which accompany certain works in the exhibition and relate personal experiences. The accounts of the situations are clearly his, but did they really occur the way he describes them? Instead of trying to explain the paintings, the texts pose a question. A question about the realness of storytelling, and the realness of the storyteller; a question about the realness of painting, and the realness of the painter.

OFICIAL NEGRO 2. Manual_Identidad_Arte Madrid_Versión horizontal BN copia

Peter Krauskopf “Shadowpieces”Galería Álvaro Alcázar2022-07-29T09:34:48+00:00

Arte Santander 2022

16 – 20 of july 2022

Rebeca Plana – A year from Santander

BOOTH# 26

The Álvaro Alcázar Gallery presents in this edition of Arte Santander a series of 12 works made by the artist Rebeca Plana over the last 12 months. The origin of this project dates back to the last edition of the fair, in July 2021, when the artist visited our stand. There it was agreed that she would be the gallery’s bet for the next edition and the project was defined: “A year from Santander”. The artist has produced 12 works, one each month to be presented in July 2022.

This series that we present here responds to this idea. It consists of twelve works made in mixed media on paper that respond to the marked style of the artist. Works where the protagonists, the colour and the line arranged on plain backgrounds reveal numerous emotional perceptions. They are works of a markedly abstract character, sometimes calligraphic, which combine elements of structured composition with a savage and improvisational atmosphere, taking them towards the historical patriarchy of abstract expressionism.

Arte Santander 2022Galería Álvaro Alcázar2022-07-15T10:51:51+00:00

BAD + Bordeaux 2022

7 – 10 of July 2022

Booth # R+1 36 Hangar 4

Álvaro Alcázar Gallery participates in the first edition of the BAD + Bordeaux Fair, from 7 to 10 July in Bordeaux. On this occasion, artists represented by the Gallery will be present at Stand R+1 36, combining small and large sizes.

In the sculptural field, Spanish artists such as Jose Cháfer, Mari Puri Herrero and Juan Garaizabal will be in the exhibition. There will also be the painting of the German Peter Krauskopf with his “overpainting” pieces and the great representative of Spanish art Rafael Canogar, with his works on methacrylate.

Finally, there will be two works by Eduardo Arroyo with his unmistakable fly and a painting with his characteristic literary inspiration.

BAD + Bordeaux 2022Galería Álvaro Alcázar2022-07-07T09:07:19+00:00

Comunidad – Collective exhibition

COMUNIDAD

May 26th – July 21st 2022

On 26 May, Gallery Alvaro Alcázar gallery presents the group exhibition Community, which can be visited until 21 July. The exhibition addresses different perspectives of the vast concept of Community, ranging from an intimate and individualistic vision, to a much more collective approach, which presents a social group with common characteristics. The exhibition presents 17 works in different techniques, sizes and medium by 16 different artists, all of them linked by a common connection, the concept of community in its different approaches; through cities such as New York, buildings, people, symbols or landscapes.

Among the participating artists, it stands out the presence of artists from the gallery, as in the case of Rafael Canogar with one of his most recent methacrylates, Simon Edmondson with an unpublished oil on canvas or Kepa Garraza who shows us a representation of his series Just want to set the world on fire. Cristina Babiloni attracts attention with an imposing 4m high polyptych representing the seabed. Equally noteworthy is the presence of Guillem Nadal with his Project for an Island or the recently added to the gallery’s list of artists, Jose Cháfer, with his first bronze sculpture. Eduardo Arroyo presents a stone sculpture that refers to the delusional story of Carmen Amaya during her stay at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York, which was precisely one of the most famous themes in the artist’s career.

Also noteworthy is the contribution of invited artists, such as the Galician artist Jorge Barbi, this time with sculptural works that, as is usual in his production, are made from objects found in the countryside. The artist Andreu Alfaro presents an emblematic sculpture that embodies the goddess Aphrodite. Photography is represented on the one hand by the Sevillians Paz Juristo and Anuca Aísa, the first with the image of a New York skyscraper and the second with a work that is part of her “subsuelos” series. On the other hand, the French photographer Julien Spiewak presents a work from his “Corps de Style” series, where, as usual, a naked body appears next to a fragment of an interior, in this case a column, which reminds us of the mentioned Aphrodite of Alfaro. The painter Montserrat Gómez-Osuna also treats an urban scene, a building, a structure that is difficult to identify and disturbing, on acrylic board.

Lastly, we should also point out the work of foreign artists, such as Matthew Benedict, with his iconic “Hazel Witch”, or the Russian Andrei Roiter, who has sent a large-format canvas representing cardboard boxes. Finally, the French painter Jude Castel, with his particular mastery of the ballpoint pen, has made two works expressly for this exhibition within the series of urban memories. With all this, we are facing an exhibition with first-rate artists and a great diversity of genres with no apparent relationship, but under which a common concept underlies: that of community.

Catalogue of the exhibition

Comunidad – Collective exhibitionGalería Álvaro Alcázar2022-07-15T08:47:02+00:00

Las tentaciones de Courbet by Jose Luis Serzo

José Luis Serzo – ‘Las tentaciones de Courbet’

March 24th – May 21st

From Thursday 24 March, the Alvaro Alcázar Gallery presents the solo exhibition of the artist José Luis Serzo, who is, in the words of the historian Juan Manuel Bonet, “one of the most powerful voices of figuration today”. The exhibition, which includes paintings, sculptures and installations, can be visited until mid-May.

José Luis Serzo (Albacete 1977) returns with a new series that promises to be one of the most subversive and disturbing of his career. Courbet’s temptations could be the life we do not dare to live: the people we want to merge with or the places we want to go despite the terror of throwing ourselves into the void. José Luís Serzo (Albacete, 1977) uses the painter Gustav Courbet as an excuse to take us to a stage where pleasure, eroticism and guilt dance; a pictorial and sculptural daydream that shows us the world without any qualms or filters. From Courbet’s dreams and fears imagined by Serzo, we are witnesses to a study of eroticism linked to fantasy, long banished from the sex we practice in this omnipantal society. In this exhibition, Serzo studies sexuality lived as a game and approaches the female anatomy with an almost frightening authority; bodies that are landscapes, postures that are the stellar movement of the universe. She fills them with palpitating iconographies, masks of death, flowers, eroticised garlic and a sea of crimson curtains that seem to us like skirts towards the madness of feeling, losing our senses in the process. And so he tells us that to live intensely is also to approach death.

Lidón Sancho Ribés, art critic and writer.

Short biography and CV:

José Luis Serzo is a multidisciplinary artist who, through his paintings, drawings, photographs, objects, installations and literature, unifies different topics where the imaginary and the reality take shape in an original way in a mise-en-scène, creating exhibition-stories and allowing to exploit different disciplines. He began his studies of Humanities in Albacete, to later study Art in Toledo, however, he finished his studies in Madrid, where he had several exhibitions from very early on.

Some of his best known series are ‘Post Show’, ‘El fantástico vuelo del hombre cometa’, ‘Thewelcome’, ‘Los sueños de I Ming’ or ‘Los Señores del Bosque’. He has participated in exhibitions in museums, art centres, galleries and fairs around the world, such as in Munich, Madrid, Paris, Berlin, Prague, Buenos Aires, among others.Serzo has also engage into the world of cinema producing a short film called ‘Archimétrica’, which has won several international awards between 2020 and 2021.

List of pieces

CV

Las tentaciones de Courbet by Jose Luis SerzoGalería Álvaro Alcázar2022-03-29T09:40:41+00:00

ARCO 2022 February 23-27

The Álvaro Alcázar Gallery is once again participating in the new edition of the ARCO 40+1 Fair, where recent works by several of the gallery’s national artists will be shown, such as Kepa Garraza with his new protest series We just want to set the world on fire, Rebeca Plana and Cristina Babiloni, also with recent work. Another artist from Madrid, Jose Cháfer, represents the sculptural section of the exhibition. In a more material sense, there is a work by Guillem Nadal, included in the series ‘Projecte per a una illa’, a project that is currently on display at the Gallery until the beginning of March. The presence of the work of Mari Puri Herrero in a Solo Project, with her sculptures of Heads in the characteristic “Bilbao Blue”, in an adjoining space, at stand 7A16B, should be highlighted.

Eduardo Arroyo’s imposing work Dichoso Quien como Ulises ha hecho un largo viaje is framed within the framework of the centenary of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses, coinciding also with the publication of Ulysses illustrated by the artist. Another of the iconic pieces taking part is the sculpture Corkscrew, by Nacho Criado, a leading exponent of Spanish conceptual art in the second half of the 20th century. The presence of Rafael Canogar also stands out with his paintings on methacrylate, in which he investigates for the first time with this material as a support, infusing the works with a strong symbolic charge.

Finally, the international note is provided by Simon Edmondson and a sample of his new series Silver linings.

ARCO 2022 February 23-27Galería Álvaro Alcázar2022-02-21T10:13:12+00:00

Guillem Nadal – Recent works

GUILLEN NADAL – Recent works

January – March 2022

The Alvaro Alcazar Gallery presents from January 21 the monographic exhibition of the Majorcan artist Guillem Nadal. The exhibition includes a total of sixteen pieces made in recent months, in large and small format, for which the painter has used paper, board and canvas as supports. Guillem Nadal retakes for this exhibition his “Projecte per a una illa”, a series started in 2016 and which is, without a doubt, one of the valued projects within his extensive career. The works exhibited here, like all the project, stand out for their great gesturality, conferred by the artist’s creative process. Nadal works with his hands, plowing the canvas, producing furrows, textures; literally introducing himself into the work. The result is a game of light and shadow that invites not only to see the paintings from different points of view, but also generates in the spectator an inevitable attraction to touch the paintings. Nadal’s characteristic monochromatism, limited to a palette of whites, blacks, and grays, is altered on this occasion by the novel introduction of purple tones, which for the artist are nothing more than part of the process of “sedimentation”, as he defines it, the result of chance in the process of creating the painting. Guillem Nadal’s artistic production includes different series, where the artist projects fragments of himself, different attitudes, or feelings; this is the case of “Miralls” or “El Paisatge de la memòria”, thus constituting his “Projecte per a una illa” a small part of this extensive production.

The works presented here show the artistic maturity of their author, understanding them within the totality of the project and not in solitary. From a formal point of view, Nadal moves in the language of abstraction, creating curved forms, under which underlies the idea of the island. Island as a sentimental journey, as a metaphor for life, as a path that takes you back to the starting point and finally, to the possibility of building your own island. Paradoxically, an island that does not refer to the place where Nadal was born and lives but has much deeper meanings. This is his particular way of joining and reinventing the long tradition of Majorcan landscape painting, which reached its highest peaks in the 40s, the difference is that Nadal, recreates the landscapes of the mind, referring to the poetics of this genre.

List of pieces

Catalogue of works

Guillem Nadal – Recent worksGalería Álvaro Alcázar2022-01-28T16:57:32+00:00

Arroyo and (some of) his favorite characters

From November 18th to December Alvaro Alcázar gallery presents the solo exhibition “Arroyo and (some of) his favorite characters”. Eduardo Arroyo is one of the most important Spanish artists on the international scene and his painting played a fundamental role in the postwar and later Spanish scene, being the greatest exponent of so-called figurative realism.

Álvaro Alcázar gallery offers its space to give life to the imaginative and vital universe of the painter, through a selection of some of the main characters that obsessed the artist during his long career. The exhibition has been structured around a selection of eight main themes, which has undoubtedly been the most arduous task of the entire project, given the enormous repertoire of hobbies and characters that surrounded the artist’s life. These are: Eduardo with his self-portraits, Tío Pepe, deshollinadores, entre pintores, JMBW, moscas, James Joyce and José Bergamín. Most of these themes derive from his passion for literature, art or lived experiences, which is why they contain numerous readings and metaphors, turning them into authentic painted chronicles. It is therefore a narration of his experiences, dressed in the irony and critical sense that always characterized the work of Eduardo Arroyo.

This exhibition brings together around thirty works, in techniques such as painting, collage, sculpture, drawing, photography or engraving, made by Arroyo from the end of the 50s, until 2018 and therefore, a reflection of the different styles that the artist went through, from a naturalistic language, through pointillism, pop-art and even cubism. This is a unique opportunity to see together some of Eduardo’s most representative works on these topics, including some of them being shown to the public for the first time. This exhibition has carried out together with the collaboration of his family and close friends, who wanted to pay him their particular tribute.