- Venue
- South Hill Park Arts Centre
- Location
The environment that we inhabit is in a constant stage of development which continues to disrupt the organised structures of the urban space. The arrangement of architectural structures that shapes our visual relationship to our surroundings remains unsettled, resulting in a relationship which is potentially uncertain.
This notion of the unstable, contemporary, urban environment provides a starting point for the conceptual paintings of Cipriano Martínez which are currently showing at South Hill Park Arts Centre, Bracknell. This exhibition runs alongside Martínez’s solo show Dislocation which was recently exhibited at Maddox Arts, London.
The paintings at South Hill Park are shown in Atrium creating a subtle dialogue between the structures of the space that they are shown in, and the painterly space which is rendered through the works.
Serial Reconstructions, 2009 – 10, is a series of five works that depicts the most representational space out of the works being shown. One can recognise familiar areas of colour and line which are highlighted by their relationship to the architectural constructions of Atrium’s interior. Whilst the paintings create a sense of reality through the depiction of a three dimensional space, there is no discernible perspective. The viewer is navigated around the painting, an experience of looking through and beneath the painted layers and overlapping constructions, resulting in an overall feeling of disorientation. Through this disorientation the viewer is presented with an experience that is removed from reality.
Both exhibitions respond to the discussion about contemporary painting after Modernism – the tension between representational painting and abstraction. The structural shapes within the work are identifiable but they are painted flatly with almost no tonal differentiation, underlining their relationship to abstract painting with a nod to representation.
Works such as Dislocation Sepia (2010) and Slope (2009 – both shown at Maddox Arts) are more abstract, with the use of only two colours and little variation in the repeated shapes that make up the paintings. Consequently these works evoke an experience that is removed further still from reality. Despite this unrepresentational appearance there is a sense of nostalgia to Dislocation Sepia, created by the use of a pale, muted palette. Works such as Merz (2010) and Chasm (2010), present a surface that refers more strongly to their architectural source.
The subject matter of Martínez’ painting, the ever changing urban space, becomes distanced through the process of painting. Martínez works from a personal archive of photographs which are digitally manipulated and used as source material for paintings. The final works do not refer directly to their photographic source; neither do they portray a slick polished surface, but a painterly one with unfinished sections and unrehearsed marks.
Cipriano Martínez’ paintings are on display at South Hill Park until 4th April 2010. Admission is free.
