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Más razones
Exhibition venue: EspacioMenos1
c/- La Palma, 28, Madrid
Exhibition opens Thursday 28th January at 8pm
and continues until 14th February, 2010
Más razones is a project by two Australian artists, Jo Darbyshire, based in Perth, Western Australia, and Rox De Luca, resident of Madrid since 2007. Their first collaborative show, 25 reasons, was held in Australia's capital city, Canberra, in 1997. In 1999, they held their second joint exhibition, 50 reasons, in Fremantle, Western Australia. Más razones, at EspacioMenos1 in Madrid, is their first international collaboration.
Más razones involves a wonderful connection with the respected Madrileño encuadernadores (book binders), the Jesús Cortés family. When replacing old and damaged books with tapas (new covers), the bookbinders passed the old, discarded tapas to the artists. The rich histories, surfaces, and ages of the tapas vary. Some are cloth, others are made from leather and a few very old tapas are vellum. The tapas provide an evocative and rich surface for painterly interventions, and a source of sensual tactile contrast with the aluminium surfaces included in the exhibition.
Most works in Más razones were made by each artist separately in their respective geographic locations: Perth and Madrid. Many of the tapas also traversed the globe in a journey to Australia and back again to Madrid in the course of the project. The individual works, carefully juxtaposed against each other, offer the viewer a broad and complex range of associations and poetic dissonances.
Darbyshire´s elusive layers of paint on the weathered and worn Madrid tapas reflect her long-standing interest in playing with the nature of water as both metaphorical element and site. Her work here explores ideas of immersion, desire and apprehension. Her evocative works speak of other worlds, distinct floating worlds, and are informed by her direct experience with the colour and forms of water bodies found in Australia and Canada.
De Luca´s subjects, often intimate still-life studies of fruits, vegetables and other small objects or images, like la peonza (spinning top) and huevo (egg), are combined with decorative elements. Her fascination with aluminium as a base for her paintings is explored in several paintings and, juxtaposed with the old tapas, provide another layer of interest. Fruit and vegetables are presented alongside embossed texts, using English and Spanish words, stream of consciousness, radio soundbites or repetitions. These pieces offer insights into the artist´s experiences of learning a new language, of being in another culture, and of her shifts between inglés, español and italiano.
A number of works in Más razones are the result of direct collaboration. Each artist had the liberty to respond to the other’s marks and imagery, to work over or with the other's aesthetic. These are quieter works, sometimes melding and blending imagery and ideas, floating objects against fluid grounds.
Más razones: more reasons to ponder, to reflect, to linger. Jo Darbyshire and Rox De Luca´s works explore ideas of difference and connection. Their works focus on culturally specific and distinct geographical locations, and reflect each artist’s responses to living in different, yet connected, worlds. The parallel and sometimes linked physical and emotional spaces on view here give us new insights for imagining the world and re-sensing how we move through it.
This exhibition has been made possible with the assistance of the Australian Embassy, Madrid.
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For further information regarding the exhibition please contact the artist Rox De Luca roxdeluca@yahoo.com or +34 678 599099
Or contact Espaciomenosuno www.espaciomenosuno.com
info@espaciomenosuno.com tel: 915213584
Opening hours: Monday to Friday 17 to 20h. Saturday and Sunday 18 – 21h.
Or by appointment at any other times.