Combining sensory and perceptual components. Creating images between memory and reality. A synesthesia of fluid forms and colour. Art unfolds through the gaze, art unfolds through painting. Depths and emergencies as a manifesto of mixed cultures but with distinct traits. Chromatology of life. As much as the human being’s senses are catalogued and different, the disuse of one of them strains the imagination to a sublime fantasy. Eliel David Pérez Martínez – Mexican painter born in 1998 – is a prompter of such imagination. Sensational and psychic, his way of making art navigates the perception of external things and then unleashes the introjective result of the same. It is a catalyst between several elements, it is a reagent between visions and customs, between reality and appearance. The works thus realize (and are created by) a continuous dialogue between presences and absences, between the observation of the viewer and the dissemination of a personal thought.

Eliel David Pérez Martínez, “CROMA”, exhibition view, 2024, Gallerie Riunite, Napoli, courtesy of the gallery and the artist, photo credits Paolo Vitale

There is no axiom in Pérez Martínez’s painting: the superimposition of gestures and signs in undulating, angular forms cancels out figurative references proper, in favour of expression bordering on abstraction but in the concrete attraction of pure colour. The artist, who lived in Venice for many years to complete his academic studies, brings together his Mexican culture with that of the lagoon, revealing deep assonances and simple discords. Chromatic forces in different anthropologies find balances in visual complementarity. Hues of greens, ochres, reds and earths are circumscribed in the works, creating sequential planes that are sometimes veiled and at other times more substantial. And with the titles to the works, Eliel David suggests his intentions: seemingly divergent from what is seen, the pictorial image becomes perceived imagination in the senses.

Eliel David Pérez Martínez, “CROMA”, exhibition view, 2024, Gallerie Riunite, Napoli, courtesy of the gallery and the artist, photo credits Paolo Vitale

With a series of recently produced works, the artist is exhibiting for the first time in Naples with a solo show entitled CROMA at Gallerie Riunite. The exhibition is accompanied by a text by Lucrezia Odorici and enjoys the patronage of the Embassy and Consulate of Mexico in Campania. The entire narrative and experience of Eliel David Pérez Martínez is encapsulated in the median dimension of the paintings. In the misty Venetian atmosphere, festive Latin American tones light up and darken. The juxtaposition of colours balances a pictorial language born of experience and new awareness. A given light colour is mirrored by a dark one, even under the sphere of the quantity impressed on the canvas. Between dilution and materiality, oil offers a coming and going, an under and over, an in and out of what is perceived.

Eliel David Pérez Martínez, “Gelato de naranja con fresa y maguey”, 2024, oil and acrylic on canvas, 42 x 35,5 cm, courtesy of the gallery and the artist, photo credits Paolo Vitale

In works such as Gelato de naranja con fresa y maguey, the intention to make one savour an element that is not really present, makes the image of consistencies and actions come from the mere act of looking. And before the works, space is contrasted and time travels in reflections and considerations. The young painter exploits his innate Mexican essence for another, introjected artistic coexistence. The mixing and distinction of each painted element means that there can be no end to experiences to be told and new knowledge to be experienced. Like a cut and sew, Eliel David takes and carries different things, translates them into colour and manifests them with fluid freedom.

Info:

Eliel David Pérez Martínez. CROMA
16/05 – 12/07/2024
Gallerie Riunite
Via Cavallerizza a Chiaia 57, Napoli
www.gallerieriunite.it

Massimiliano Bastardo

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.