Mapas de Mágicos Azares

The solo exhibition “Mapas de Mágicos Azares” presents 9 works by the artist Martina Rodríguez Morán, whose roots come from Llanes. Throughout her artistic career, she completed her studies in architecture and devoted herself more and more to painting. Characteristic of her style is the constant search for new creations and the drive towards optimization through spontaneity in the creative process itself. Form and color help her to illustrate her thoughts and ideas on canvas. In her works, the artist contextualizes both history and tradition as well as society‘s ongoing search for the meaning of life, or rather, the opportunities it offers.

Martina‘s maps of magical chance, as well as maps in general, are intended to make it easier for viewers to understand connections that are difficult to formulate. With her abstract painting style, the artist faces the challenge of representing a curved surface on a plane. This supposed distortion of reality leads to the artist‘s story, which is inspired by her own culture and society. The complex color palette, extensive use of gold leaf and surface patterns can be immediately perceived as an optical quality of the artist‘s material and technique. Through the combination of diverse patterns, seemingly earthly sections and large areas, an open legibility of the artworks opens up. Martina manages, through careful planning and execution of her work, to fill the works with structure and meaning. After the first brush strokes, she uses digital means to find the effect that best suits her. The important thing is that the implementation of this result is done in an analogical way. The painting process lives from the various connections that surround and define a person. This is reflected in the exhibited works: everywhere you can recognize connection points that are comparable to pixels, neural activities in the brain or the exchange of signals; all starting points direct, just like the individual ducts on the canvas, our thinking, acting and feeling, thus turning the two-dimensional conception into a multidimensional experience.

The colorfulness of the works underlines the richness of their meaning; the gold leaf used refers to the ancient kingdom of northern Spain, which, through trade and treasure hunting, shaped its own destiny. This richness is also reflected in the botany of Asturias, which the artist narrates through her flower paintings. Constrained by the shape of the flower, the inner colorfulness of the flower radiates magically: viewers are given clues to the botanical provenance of the species through the shape and title. The intentionally unrealistic appearance of the flower itself can be understood as a subtlety of the artist, who with color gives expression to the scent of the flower. Martina‘s works, when intensely contemplated, can not only evoke memories, but also influence our mood. Colors and shapes merge into a whole, as well as history and myth. The narrative conveyed to us can enchant, without viewers needing to understand function or context, and yet, for those interested, the content is present. The works on display reveal patterns in which, as in rug making, historical and cultural elements of northern Spain can be read.

Lugares Atávicos

Juan Antón‘s landscape paintings immerse us in the diverse vegetation of northern Spain, overlooking impressive mountain ranges, lush green valleys, river and lake landscapes, as well as impressive coastlines and the rich flora of the region. The 12 exhibited works are glimpses of a world that, despite modern developments, has not lost its timeless beauty. We, the viewers, are sometimes invited to follow the artist‘s perception in order to rediscover the essence of the landscape in its original form. If we choose to accept this invitation, we can forget the fast pace of city life for the duration of our visit and immerse ourselves in the picturesque adventure of the exhibition.

Juan Antón employs a specific visual language in his works to depict his surroundings. At first glance, it may seem that the artist is foregoing a visual logic in composition to accurately portray important parts and details. However, it becomes clear that landscapes are not closed spaces and offer the artist the opportunity to develop new perspectival compositions. Here, he faces the problem of totality, the unity in multiplicity, which he solves with his complex visual language. Viewers can engage in the artist‘s exploration of perspective and color. Color, too, can be both unsettling and fascinating in its use. At times, the colors in hyperreal precision resemble a photograph of meadows or trees, while at other times they are used expressively to convey a mood or flood the landscape with atmospheric light. The artist succeeds in subjectively painting topographic places without losing their peculiar character, and although we are dealing with seemingly illustrated cultural landscapes, the loving homage to the archaic nature prevails.