Galeria La Caja Negra | NICO MUNUERA | blue mountains walk | Madrid | Sept 8 – Nov 19
September 8 – November 19, 2022
NICO MUNUERA | blue mountains walk
Galeria La Caja Negra
In-Person Viewing:
Fernando VI, 17-2 Left, 28004 Madrid ES
Virtual Viewing:
https://lacajanegra.art/202201nicomunueralasmontanasazulescaminan
Under the title Blue Mountains Walk, Nico Munuera presents a new series of works that originate in water and in geological movements.
This set of unique works clearly references Japanese printmaking. They preserve in their margins the traces of their own elaboration. These marks indicate that painting is extensive and complex, always difficult to contain in a rectangle.
The idea of internal movement caused by the external form of a plant—an idea Munuera has alluded to in other works—this time shifts to an interest in the much slower state of transformation of geological formations. These are internal, silent transformations whose external appearance is that of containing infinite time in stone form. It is a continuous transformation, yet it is imperceptible to the naked eye:
“A movement that we must learn to see if we want to be conscious of our own movement. A state of consciousness that brings us closer to the nature we belong to and which we depend on”
In this exhibit we can clearly see references to the observation of the landscape and the small elements that shape it. The images work as a direct documentation of the gaze, while they relate to the graphical elements. In this sense, they echo the series Approximate Geology of Painting (2022), where the idea of language and the construction of concepts that are happening in the time dilated in the studio are captured in a plane.
These works on paper by Nico Munuera are direct, full of simplicity and beauty. The paintings manifest as a performative exercise and as a place of meditation, while they trigger a reflection that links our contemporary present with the origin of the earth.
In them we find an understanding of painting that goes far beyond the superficial view of a landscape and its elements. It is a meticulous observation of the pictorial practice that transforms itself into nature “…because painting, in the end, among a thousand things, is but sand and water.”
Nico Munuera, (Lorca, 1974) focuses his work on painting and the internal and external processes that shape it. Based on a deep awareness of painting as nature itself, he creates fields of color where the simplicity of the horizontal line and the minimal gestures act as temporary records. Fluidity, color and the idea of limits are fundamental characteristics of his work, as well as the concepts of time, sequence, intuition and beauty. He develops his work by him in Valencia and Ibiza, and his work by him has been exhibited and can be found in the collections of multiple institutions such as Fundación Barrié, Museo Patio Herreriano or IVAM.
