The exploration of reality becomes a questioning and sensual experience charged with nature. A certain transformation of matter takes place, sometimes with elegance, sometimes with power. Hermetic and eroded art seamlessly combines abstraction and figuration, erasing those boundaries between the ordinary inside and the ordinary outside. Two exhibitions, two artists, two different aesthetic processes, one point in common: investigating something concrete.
Alicja Kwade, In Cerchi, exhibition view, Galleria Continua San Gimignano, 2023, courtesy of the artist and GALLERIA CONTINUA, photo by Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio
LNature, with its artefacts, is the concrete something that both artists go in search of, focusing on two sides of the same coin. Alicja Kwade – Polish artist born in 1979 – investigates it theoretically, while José Yaque – Cuban artist born in 1985 – chooses an empirical approach. On the one hand science and philosophy, on the other experience and intellect. These are two approaches that are apparently distant from each other, but which, in truth, cannot be separated if the common yardstick is reality, the concrete something that can be touched, seen, felt. The artists are fascinated by the enigmatic presence and absence, emptiness and fullness of a nature that can become something else.
Alicja Kwade, Superheavy Skies, acciaio inox lucidato a specchio, pietre, 291,9 x 377,6 cm, Galleria Continua San Gimignano, 2023, courtesy of the artist and GALLERIA CONTINUA, photo by Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio
The Polish artist focuses her research on the objecthood of the object, she wants to give meaning to each element brought into play, to question established knowledge. The perception of space and time is explored through elements produced by nature, manipulated and distorted with minimal elegance. A surreal lightness sets her works, just enough to question what is real and what is not. Alicja bounces between visible and intelligible matter, contemplation of a known and unknown universe. The Cuban artist relates the human being to nature, not only for what is organic, but also and above all for the sensitive synesthesia that is created. Something different is always perceived in his canvases despite the fact that the same phenomenon is presented. He does not imbue color with meanings or metaphors, he shows it for what it is with spontaneity and the manifestation of an immersive and enveloping matter. José produces energy and movement because he relates with the object of his investigation, to the limits of the performative, to give a free and infinite vision.
José Yaque, Eruzioni, exhibition view, Galleria Continua San Gimignano, 2023, courtesy of the artist and GALLERIA CONTINUA, photo by Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio
The Polish artist focuses her research on the objecthood of the object, she wants to give meaning to each element brought into play, to question established knowledge. The perception of space and time is explored through elements produced by nature, manipulated and distorted with minimal elegance. A surreal lightness sets her works, just enough to question what is real and what is not. Alicja bounces between visible and intelligible matter, contemplation of a known and unknown universe. The Cuban artist relates the human being to nature, not only for what is organic, but also and above all for the sensitive synesthesia that is created. Something different is always perceived in his canvases despite the fact that the same phenomenon is presented. He does not imbue color with meanings or metaphors, he shows it for what it is with spontaneity and the manifestation of an immersive and enveloping matter. José produces energy and movement because he relates with the object of his investigation, to the limits of the performative, to give a free and infinite vision.
José Yaque, Falla en turquesa, acrylic on canvas, 310 x 380 cm, Galleria Continua San Gimignano, 2022, courtesy of the artist and GALLERIA CONTINUA, photo by Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio
In the Arco dei Becci room, Yaque exhibits a small number of large works. Lush canvases reminiscent of molten rock, the layers of the earth’s crust, lava flowing out of it. The allusion is to the eruption of the volcano in La Palma, which the artist experienced first-hand. Delighted by this experience, he shares it with color, the natural child of the earth itself, explodes with it, escapes rational logic and lets his body express itself in symbiosis with the event. Falla en Turquesa and Turquesa con impurezas, a diptych and a triptych respectively, well express the telluric force of earth and man. The color overlaps and in the creative process, thanks to a drying plastic wrap, ripples and emerges.
José Yaque, Turquesa con impurezas, acrylic on canvas, 230 x 570 cm, Galleria Continua San Gimignano, 2022, courtesy of the artist and GALLERIA CONTINUA, photo by Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio
For both Alicja Kwade and José Yaque, the perception that drives the aesthetic act is a consequence of nature. The transformative act becomes the main focus in both researches, they become other realities, with figures clearly visible and others only intuitable. Both researches pose enigmatic questions, on the one hand we have the presentation of the object, on the other we have its representation. And so art as Mimesis is psychic and scientific, is philosophical and transcendent.
Info:
Alicja Kwade. In Cerchi / José Yaque. Eruzione
23/09/2023 – 14/01/2024
Galleria Continua
Via del Castello 13 / Arco dei Becci 1, San Gimignano (SI)
www.galleriacontinua.com
Art Curator and Art Advisor, graduated in Visual Arts and Cultural Mediation, with Master in Curatorial Practices, born in 1995, lives in Naples. He collaborates with Galleries and Independent Spaces, his research is mainly focused on Emerging Painting, with a careful and inclined gaze also on other forms of aesthetic language.
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