After his participation in the first exhibition that opened the “Guest Room” three years ago and the exhibition of his work at the gallery’s booth in the last edition of ArteSantander last summer, we now welcome the first solo exhibition of Néstor del Barrio (Socabarga, Cantabria, 1994) in our exhibition space in Santander.
Since that first contact, his work has not ceased to evolve in line with his usual artistic work, based on the processual development and continuous research that lead him from one discovery to another. Although the basis of his work continues to be the relationship between the organic and the digital as a key theme of modernity, his creations incorporate new materials and formats, moving away from mere painting without ever losing sight of it. It could be said that despite the different materials and the introduction of three-dimensionality and installation, Nestor’s work always speaks of painting and its evolution in a world of constant and drastic changes introduced by new technologies, another of his great themes.
The title Paisajismo (Landscaping) brings together two concepts that complement each other here. On the one hand, it refers to the traditional genre of landscape, which is always present in his particular imaginary, and on the other hand, it introduces the more architectural theme of landscaping as the organization of the territory of the garden, of domesticated nature, whose courses, compositions, paths, fountains, even networks of roots and branches are powerfully reminiscent of the drawings of the plates that form the guts of electronic devices. He thus establishes a curious parallelism between the traces of Renaissance gardens -at a macro level- and the images of microchips, inverting the scale. The digital era and virtuality are revolutionizing the parameters that have traditionally been attributed to landscape, opening up infinite scenarios that artists, as developers of worlds, discover for us as mirror games, multiplying the possibilities of reflecting a multidimensional reality.
Relating these two symbologies, large-format canvases and a series of works that analyze the structures of electronic components with die-cut metal frames through which the painting expands. We also present in our new room Recuerdos (Memories), an independent installation composed of polystyrene plates intervened with pyrography. They are made through a process of subtraction contrary to painting, removing matter instead of providing it, so the interest lies again in the groove, the paths, the cables, the circuits… completing from another format the aesthetic logic of Paisajismo.
PAISAJISMO
10 February – 2 April, 2022
Néstor del Barrio
Galería Juan Silió
C/ Sol 45, bajo. 39003 Santander.
Opening Hours:
Tuesday – Saturday,
10:30AM – 1:30PM
6PM – 9PM