Juan Uslé
07 May - 27 Jun 2009
JUAN USLÉ
May 7 - June 26, 2009
THE PAINTINGS OF JUAN USLE
barriers of Beauty
Juan Uslé has a bright painting style especially in line and colour. A southern kind of light is fixated by a broad palette of colours visibly and “humanely” interwoven with the carrier; uniting canvas and matter in a single material shimmering that lingers on the retina.
Every painting is always unique; any printed reproduction could at most invoke a distant memory of the painting itself. Painting is material by definition, but as for perception it is a sensory alibi to relish in colours turning into a focal point through intelligent combinations/constellations.
Though recognisable, Juan’s painting is far from predictable. The deviant derailments in construction and often freely structured and minimal compositions create as it were a mirror for the a priori imperfect way in which we look at the world and the things around us. The charm with which these paintings seduce the eye is not aestheticism but rather a way to ensure a vivid viewing of the painting - close to its skin as it were. As for planning, these compositions have been built up using vertical or horizontal bands/stripes, embracing time as a sweet and swaying wavelet on the surface of a calm sea and shaping the allusion that change and transformation – however minimal – are the essence of life itself. Juan Uslé will not create figurative paintings, even though many of his works are reminiscent of textile, curtains or blinds where subtle colour nuances stretch across the canvas like the movement of a melodeon. Like no other, Juan Uslé can let colours fan out in structures implying relief.
Here and there a stray stripe escapes the ‘orderly’ composition as an isolated twist; it is a sight for sore eyes to see how the painter himself is providing for escape routes to avoid predictability and routine in his artistic explorations. A Juan Uslé composition is analogous to the short circuits occurring between the “thinking” human mind and the “executing” hand. This is the painter’s way of releasing the work itself from any hint of an aura, mysticism or gratuitous spirituality. Juan Uslé’s painting style is noted in the history of painting as a permanent struggle from one painting to the next. Certain curves and flexes in the composition, minutely executed using tightened and short brush strokes, at times convey the anatomical structure of an eye. Thus painting becomes an eye presenting the viewer with a projection of colour in “a” form approaching “distant” afterimages. Today the question should be asked whether modern painting even provides for a meaningful and continuous interpretation of what already is and was.
Good painting abstains from pastiches and a painter today is more than ever an intelligently zapping DJ with colour working his way through to personal art with a “timbre” which is at once unique and freely related to the history of the medium. Clearly Juan Uslé has made the rich history of the art of painting his own in an attempt to recalibrate painting in an oeuvre capable of withstanding the critical fragility of the medium. A remarkable aspect of this vast oeuvre is that the compositions can be considered details of a wider and infinitely expandable “frame”. These paintings can be interpreted as puny “details” positioning themselves opposite the vastness with which the artist assembles his “created” world. A painting is a universe; a world which “is” alongside “ours”.
Colours in Juan Uslé’s paintings “flame” with as much beauty and intrigue as the sun with its fiery flanks ablaze with subtle red flares. Transparent and impenetrable brushes and intent, organic paint passages turn Juan Uslé’s paintings into an indivisible unit where depth and flatness continue to emphasise the material aspect of each painting. The viewer does not identify with the painting’s content; he beholds the beauty reflecting the thought of “something” other than what we all know. Juan Uslé’s painting is a pictorial blueprint of a “utopia” providing a home for beauty to nestle as a sign for the viewer to escape for a moment from the routine and banality of every day. Art is not aspirin, but it helps to find comfort in the hope of “something” which we cannot (yet) imagine ourselves. This neutral thought follows naturally from Juan Uslé’s painting, which leaves the viewer with nowhere to turn if he does not freely surrender to the ingenious play of form and colour which could lead to a warm feeling combined with the pleasure of seeing how the artist has successfully managed to manoeuvre his works within the traditions of modern painting.
Juan Uslé’s painting acts as a barrier of stripes thwarting every form of linear thought and leaving us at “this side” with experience of beauty; the rest of the story remains a matter of delicious guesswork and insinuation.
Luk Lambrecht
21 april 2009
May 7 - June 26, 2009
THE PAINTINGS OF JUAN USLE
barriers of Beauty
Juan Uslé has a bright painting style especially in line and colour. A southern kind of light is fixated by a broad palette of colours visibly and “humanely” interwoven with the carrier; uniting canvas and matter in a single material shimmering that lingers on the retina.
Every painting is always unique; any printed reproduction could at most invoke a distant memory of the painting itself. Painting is material by definition, but as for perception it is a sensory alibi to relish in colours turning into a focal point through intelligent combinations/constellations.
Though recognisable, Juan’s painting is far from predictable. The deviant derailments in construction and often freely structured and minimal compositions create as it were a mirror for the a priori imperfect way in which we look at the world and the things around us. The charm with which these paintings seduce the eye is not aestheticism but rather a way to ensure a vivid viewing of the painting - close to its skin as it were. As for planning, these compositions have been built up using vertical or horizontal bands/stripes, embracing time as a sweet and swaying wavelet on the surface of a calm sea and shaping the allusion that change and transformation – however minimal – are the essence of life itself. Juan Uslé will not create figurative paintings, even though many of his works are reminiscent of textile, curtains or blinds where subtle colour nuances stretch across the canvas like the movement of a melodeon. Like no other, Juan Uslé can let colours fan out in structures implying relief.
Here and there a stray stripe escapes the ‘orderly’ composition as an isolated twist; it is a sight for sore eyes to see how the painter himself is providing for escape routes to avoid predictability and routine in his artistic explorations. A Juan Uslé composition is analogous to the short circuits occurring between the “thinking” human mind and the “executing” hand. This is the painter’s way of releasing the work itself from any hint of an aura, mysticism or gratuitous spirituality. Juan Uslé’s painting style is noted in the history of painting as a permanent struggle from one painting to the next. Certain curves and flexes in the composition, minutely executed using tightened and short brush strokes, at times convey the anatomical structure of an eye. Thus painting becomes an eye presenting the viewer with a projection of colour in “a” form approaching “distant” afterimages. Today the question should be asked whether modern painting even provides for a meaningful and continuous interpretation of what already is and was.
Good painting abstains from pastiches and a painter today is more than ever an intelligently zapping DJ with colour working his way through to personal art with a “timbre” which is at once unique and freely related to the history of the medium. Clearly Juan Uslé has made the rich history of the art of painting his own in an attempt to recalibrate painting in an oeuvre capable of withstanding the critical fragility of the medium. A remarkable aspect of this vast oeuvre is that the compositions can be considered details of a wider and infinitely expandable “frame”. These paintings can be interpreted as puny “details” positioning themselves opposite the vastness with which the artist assembles his “created” world. A painting is a universe; a world which “is” alongside “ours”.
Colours in Juan Uslé’s paintings “flame” with as much beauty and intrigue as the sun with its fiery flanks ablaze with subtle red flares. Transparent and impenetrable brushes and intent, organic paint passages turn Juan Uslé’s paintings into an indivisible unit where depth and flatness continue to emphasise the material aspect of each painting. The viewer does not identify with the painting’s content; he beholds the beauty reflecting the thought of “something” other than what we all know. Juan Uslé’s painting is a pictorial blueprint of a “utopia” providing a home for beauty to nestle as a sign for the viewer to escape for a moment from the routine and banality of every day. Art is not aspirin, but it helps to find comfort in the hope of “something” which we cannot (yet) imagine ourselves. This neutral thought follows naturally from Juan Uslé’s painting, which leaves the viewer with nowhere to turn if he does not freely surrender to the ingenious play of form and colour which could lead to a warm feeling combined with the pleasure of seeing how the artist has successfully managed to manoeuvre his works within the traditions of modern painting.
Juan Uslé’s painting acts as a barrier of stripes thwarting every form of linear thought and leaving us at “this side” with experience of beauty; the rest of the story remains a matter of delicious guesswork and insinuation.
Luk Lambrecht
21 april 2009