The undeniable boom of figurative style in recent years has created a division in contemporary creation between those who feel identified with showing their reality in a straightforward way, and others who follow the path of abstraction. Between these two extremes of the pendulum there is a “gray zone”, often placed within these two concepts by proximity and/or remoteness, between everything and nothingness.
This style full of ambiguity tension between abstraction and figuration will be shown through the work of eleven artists, who occupy the Espacio Ephimera for three days this weekend in the exhibition “SHOOT SPEED // KILL LIGHT” by UVNT Art Fair and Galería Herrero de Tejada.
Austin Lee, Renée Estée, Mie Olise Kjærgaard, Loren Erdrich, Marria Pratts, Kottie Paloma, Eloy Arribas, Maillo, Carlos Pesudo, Cristina de Miguel and Jana Schröder inhabit what is called “gray zones”, dynamic spaces in constant movement where figure and abstraction interact and resignify each other.
“In the succession of works that make up SHOOT SPEED / KILL LIGHT we see a painting full of opportunities, capable of creating a language in accordance with an accelerated, uncertain, grotesque, brutal, hedonistic and ferocious world,” says David Morán, cultural journalist of ABC Newspaper, in the exhibition paper. And in the same way, each artist with their own peculiar style and form makes a dialogue in the space that “can be experienced as a hallucinogenic high, as an overdose of shapes, colors and mutant motifs that remind us that our gaze can be trapped in a visual loop that leads us to a hopeless solipsism,” adds the journalist.
The exhibition, on view from May 18-20, also suggests a sense of urgency and raises the question: How can artists generate works that endure and transcend beyond the present moment? In this way they present a simultaneous celebration and critique of form, challenging viewers’ perceptions and understanding of the role of form in art.
In short, this exhibition offers an acid portrait of a moment suspended between everything and nothingness where the limits between different forms are blurred and the possibilities of expression are infinite. Evidencing that forms are constantly evolving and mutating, creating a sense of uncertainty and instability that also offers harmony and coherence.