Carlos De los Ríos
13 May - 27 Jun 2009
CARLOS DE LOS RÍOS
"Pastoral"
13.05.2009 bis 27.06.2009
No reassurance art – luckily. The German-Colombian painter, Carlos De los Ríos (1974), is an architect of the space, a teacher of the hybrid, a discoverer of worlds which have the ease of a soap bubble, the colors of a Circus Roncalli and the gravity of a murderer's certainty. His pictures show for many years the explosion of life. His masters? Bosch, Goya and the tragedies of the everyday nonsense.
As already showed in his past exhibitions like Sweet Kaustik or the Promised Zone the choice of the title was an important clue for the viewer. De Los Ríos chooses the name of his work with the same brilliancy like the colors in his paintings. What could the title Pastoral say to us? Why has the artist marked his work with a hyperclassical, yes, almost antiquarian art term? Pastoral describes shepherd's poetry at the time of the Renaissance, which was transformed into paintings by quite extreme shepherds scenes - shepherds who were placed in an idyllic scenery and sang in steady melancholy state, because of unfulfilled love.
What seems clear in looking at the picture series of De los Ríos, is the preservation of the scenario of the pastoral theme. For his creatures, the painter selected the place of the short, peaceful stay, the place of melody. The allusion is declared and the result is the more astonishing. De los Ríos avoids a simple post modern substitute of the shepherd's figure with any well suitable, stylish contrast. The transformation becomes the figure and allows to feel and appear in symbiosis with the scenery.
Not the end product of a coupling of heterogeneous elements, but the transformation is painted, in his terrible, infinite diversity: This is the sound of the terrible shepherds of De los Ríos.
Text: Dr. Federico Italiano
"Pastoral"
13.05.2009 bis 27.06.2009
No reassurance art – luckily. The German-Colombian painter, Carlos De los Ríos (1974), is an architect of the space, a teacher of the hybrid, a discoverer of worlds which have the ease of a soap bubble, the colors of a Circus Roncalli and the gravity of a murderer's certainty. His pictures show for many years the explosion of life. His masters? Bosch, Goya and the tragedies of the everyday nonsense.
As already showed in his past exhibitions like Sweet Kaustik or the Promised Zone the choice of the title was an important clue for the viewer. De Los Ríos chooses the name of his work with the same brilliancy like the colors in his paintings. What could the title Pastoral say to us? Why has the artist marked his work with a hyperclassical, yes, almost antiquarian art term? Pastoral describes shepherd's poetry at the time of the Renaissance, which was transformed into paintings by quite extreme shepherds scenes - shepherds who were placed in an idyllic scenery and sang in steady melancholy state, because of unfulfilled love.
What seems clear in looking at the picture series of De los Ríos, is the preservation of the scenario of the pastoral theme. For his creatures, the painter selected the place of the short, peaceful stay, the place of melody. The allusion is declared and the result is the more astonishing. De los Ríos avoids a simple post modern substitute of the shepherd's figure with any well suitable, stylish contrast. The transformation becomes the figure and allows to feel and appear in symbiosis with the scenery.
Not the end product of a coupling of heterogeneous elements, but the transformation is painted, in his terrible, infinite diversity: This is the sound of the terrible shepherds of De los Ríos.
Text: Dr. Federico Italiano