Pintura. Tout court brings together three artists who are similar in their ability to define images and conjugate them from their abstract condition, but also in how they auscultate the processual aspect of painting to reveal these found images and reveal them in a sort of poetic experience that reverberates and invokes different dimensions of artistic work, in each case in a very singular and personal way.
In Pintura. Tout court we move in the same undefined space, with a void that imposes itself in its density. As spectators we have to delve into the latent. Because in the works of Jose Díaz, Ana Manso and Antonio Mesones everything emerges and is contained at the same time. The length of our journey through their works will depend on our ability to reframe the margins and the leftovers, to experience the possibilities of these sensorial limits. Because there is always more space than we manage to encompass and it is as if this never becomes definitive, as the field of vision expands when the gaze is destabilised.
For David Barro, curator of the exhibition, the artists involved agree that in their works “the image resonates while the colour organises the space and emerges from the canvas, asserting itself as volume and leaving ajar passages; a retinal, physical, haptic painting, in which the colour trembles from within the painting, as if it wanted to peek out and then withdraw, like the images and landscapes that were its starting point”.
In José Díaz’s paintings, daily routine is the protagonist. The colour of the asphalt or the retinal fleetingness of neon lights and various signs turned into pictorial sweeps make up a painting of gestures that seems to be fixed in a kind of sliding. In Antonio Mesones’ paintings we also visualise a reality that we cannot capture nor can we describe, but whose existence we can deduce. In many cases we can think that we are before an image apparently without an image, which provokes a gaze in continuous approach and retreat. This serendipitous search is also what guides the practice of Ana Manso, who moves by intuition to find form in the unexpected and dispersed. It is about apprehending the accidental in the everyday, trying to grasp the passage of time in a conscious way, tempting the casual to abandon herself to a succession of suspended times that flirt with what we call abstraction. A painting without certainties, though sure of itself. Pintura. Tout court.
ANA MANSO (Lisbon, 1984)
Specialised in painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon, Ana Manso explores the surface, the plane, the superimposition of colours. Her work has been exhibited in solo shows at venues such as the Galleria Umberto Di Marino (Naples), the Museu Serralves in Oporto and the Galeria Pedro Cera in Lisbon. She has also been shown in group exhibitions in cities such as Prague, Bristol, Milan, Paris, Luxembourg, Venice and Madrid. Her works are part of the collection of the Museu Serralves, Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Elvas or the Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, among others.
ANTONIO MESONES (Torrelavega, Cantabria, 1965)
He studied Fine Arts at the University of the Basque Country and later travelled, through a series of scholarships, to cities such as Lisbon, Amsterdam and Berlin, where he has established his residence. His work investigates the behaviour of light and colour and the relationship between space and form. He has had solo exhibitions in galleries such as Galería Juan Silió (Santander), Galería Maior (Mallorca), Invaliden 1 Galerie (Berlin) and Galería Pilar Serra (Madrid). His work can be found in collections such as Fundación Marcelino Botín, Fundación Coca Cola, Colección CAM, Colección CAC, Colección Pilar Citoler and Colección Los Bragales.
JOSÉ DÍAZ (Madrid, 1981)
Trained in Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid, for José Díaz painting is a process of constant research, a dialogue between support and material in which formal experiences, discoveries, textures and contrasts take place. His work has been shown in solo exhibitions at the galleries José Robles (Madrid), L21 (Mallorca) and The Goma (Madrid). He has been awarded the XVII ARCO Comunidad de Madrid Prize for Young Artists and participated in Generation 2018. His work has been exhibited in spaces such as Matadero (Madrid), Sala Rekalde (Bilbao), Can Felipa (Barcelona) and CA2M (Madrid).
DAVID BARRO (Ferrol, 1974) is director of the DIDAC Foundation and curator of exhibitions. Editor and founder of DARDOmagazine, he is artistic director of MadBlue Summit, co-director of Plataforma. Festival de artes performativas and design advisor at the Agencia Gallega de Innovación (Xunta de Galicia). As an exhibition curator, he has curated over a hundred solo shows by artists such as Jessica Stockholder, Axel Hütte, Alex Katz, Günther Förg, Julião Sarmento, Julian Opie, Sandra Cinto, Fernanda Fragateiro, José Pedro Croft and Carlos Garaicoa, as well as numerous group shows. He has been managing director of the Luis Seoane Foundation, advisor to the Barrié Foundation and head of its collection, art critic for El Cultural de El Mundo and editor of magazines such as [W]art and Arte y parte. In 2010 he was artistic director of the art, architecture and design project Look Up! Natural Porto Art Show, which occupied 9 emblematic buildings in the city of Porto, and in 2011 of the International Festival of Sustainable Artistic Action SOS 4.8 in Murcia. Since 2015 he has been a lecturer on the Master’s Degree in Advanced Studies in Art History at the University of Salamanca, where he teaches 20th century painting and sculpture.
PINTURA. TOUT COURT
Curated by David Barro
19 August – 30 September, 2021
Ana Manso, Antonio Mesones, José Díaz
Galería Juan Silió
C/ Sol 45, bajo. 39003 Santander.
Opening Hours:
Monday – Saturday
10:30 – 13:30 h.
18:00 – 21:00 h.