Galería Javier López is pleased to present works by Spanish artist, José Mª Yturralde (Cuenca, 1942). The show brings together a selection of his latest paintings, named ‘Horizons.’
Yturralde in his own words:
“This show presents some of my newest paintings that stress considerations related to the concepts of space, time, the infinite and the sublime. The emptiness, energetic crib to any beginning, becomes the origin of a spatial and distant place; a horizon of events as a threshold to a new and unidentified universe. From Burke’s XVIII Century concept of the sublime, to Kant’s definition of the notion: “Sublime is the name given to what is absolutely great” (the absolutely huge is thus the infinite.) Jean - François Lyotard refers to the sublime as the opposite to what may consume or erode, that which “we cannot immediately digest.” Schopenhauer in his third book, “The World as Will and Representation” (“Die Welt as Wille und Vorstellung”), brings us back to Nature and formulates other ways of understanding the sublime: “Let us transport ourselves to a very solitary region with a boundless horizon under a completely cloudless sky, with trees and plants in completely still air, no animals, no people […].” There is no real difference between the emotions transmitted by a naturalistic landscape than that of a painting. Relating this to the Tuareg proverb “mankind dwells in the horizon,” unfolds here the drive, the cause from which the series in these exhibition partly departs; an exiguous ‘landscape,’ a dessert; the vacuum that is discerned when one is crossed by a line or a form of close energy that in turn activates other courses, scopes or places that conclude in an experience where the sacred stands - similar to a contemplative stance before a Zen garden. Further, there is an inherent reference to the metaphysical view of romantic paintings, present for example in Friedrich’s ‘Monk by the Sea’ or James Ward’s ‘Gordale Scar.’ In the same way, we can reference the intensity found in the mystic poetry by: Saint John of the Cross, Saint Theresa or Sister Joan Agnes of the Cross. Amongst the most recent allusions we can mention works by: Barnett Newmann, Kenneth Noland, and Rothko, of course. Likewise, Hiroshi Sugimoto’s ‘Sea pieces,’ Kimsooja’s video-installation ‘A Laundry Woman, Yamura River’s’ or Morton Feldman’s music are of significant importance.
These ‘Horizons’ reference a human vision of unlimited openings towards vast and bottomless spaces; a pictorial experience that intends to transcend beyond it’s own organic nature to access the remote threshold of ‘the whole.’ This is done with: light or no light, the always-vibrating positive-negative of matter and the energy beat. A pulsating energy that resembles any mayor river’s current and vortices in its long journey to the sea, which is another beginning, and that dilutes us in the whorls of waves, which in a way is maybe similar to a geometric and mental extension of our conscience.”
José Mª Yturralde has a doctorate in Fine Arts by the Technical University in Valencia and is a permanent member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts at San Carlos in Valencia. His latest solo exhibitions have been held at: Galería Rafael Ortiz in Seville, Galería Altxerri in San Sebastian, Valencia’s University (all in 2009,) Gering & López Gallery in New York and the Center for Art and Media in Kalsruhe (2008.) Yturralde lives and works in Valencia.
José Mª Yturralde’s work features in numerous private and public collections, amongst them: MNCARS, National Library, Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo, Juan March Foundation, Caja Madrid Foundation, in Madrid; Museo de Arte Abstracto, Cuenca; IVAM, Valencia’s Council and Government; Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, Palma de Mallorca; Patio Herreriano - Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Español, Valladolid; CAB, Burgos; CAAC, Seville; Centre de Recherches Visuelles, Empain, Belgium; Brooklyn Museum, New York; MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Carpenter Center, Harvard University, Cambridge; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Vitória, Brazil; Wroklaw National Museum, Poland; Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo; Novgorod State Art Museum, Russia.
Yturralde is currently exhibiting at Gering & López Gallery in New York and at the Technical University in Valencia. He has an upcoming exhibition at Galería Mário Sequeira in Braga (Portugal).
