SKY AND TIME ( Cielo y tiempo ) – Rafael Alvarado ( Tribute to Philip Guston )

Exhibition presented as part of ABIERTO MAGA / Málaga Gallery Weekend, held on 23rd and 24th October.

«In the making of an intaglio engraving, proofs called P/E are stamped, they guide us during the process, as they allow us to see the changes we make in the plate. Part of these proofs, from the engraving Venus and boot that I made in 1998, are the ones that I have intervened manually, with paint and various coloured pencils. In the process I have reserved parts of the original engraving and transformed the rest. The result is 19 unique pieces, 11 of which will form part of this exhibition.

An artist of American Abstract Expressionism, Philip Guston abandoned abstraction to move into figuration in a style that would have a notable influence on later artists. The idea of revisiting Guston again, starting from this support of recovered state evidence, has given me room to reinterpret his work in an ironic key and with a certain black humour.

I was interested in the confrontation between the classical and the modern, between the sublime and the everyday; in my original work Venus confronted with a boot. All the works are resolved in the context of a stage with a previous performance which in turn will be intervened with various acts. A theatre of the absurd with an imaginary staging.

It seemed to me that this project was closely linked to the exhibition space of the Gravura Gallery as it is the workshop where I made the original engraving and where the whole editing process was carried out». Rafael Alvarado, Málaga October 2020.

 

Obra Gráfica Intervenida