NYAB Event - Guillermo Pfaff “Inside-Out”

Guillermo Pfaff “Inside-Out”

Hionas Gallery LES

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Hionas Gallery presents Inside-Out, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Catalan artist Guillermo Pfaff. This show will mark the artist’s first time exhibiting in the U.S.

Pfaff’s abstractions are distinct in their revelation. For Inside-Out, the artist will present his latest series of paintings comprised solely of bleached linen stretched over wooden bars painted in varying colors. Each translucent canvas floats above its support system, which is subdivided by precise and narrow swaths of color, both vibrant and muted. The relative speed with which each work is produced is offset by its calming effect; a truly inspired juxtaposition when one considers the typically opposing traits of quickness and minimalism in art. The results are paintings that seem to question their own nature: each painting doubles as a visual description of a painting. Pfaff’s work is an autopsy, but one that lends the combined objects life and levity.

“There is nothing hidden in my work,” says Pfaff. “My paintings show all of what they are.” And what they are is simply wood, enamel, linen and bleach. The artist’s utilitarian approach and modest materials, while unquestionably his own, recall that of Carl Andre or Mario Merz, who found and formed poetry out of otherwise banal objects. Pfaff’s own assemblage of painterly materials, wherein the image and its parts are interchangeable, performs a sacrifice of the banal while creating a window into something profound. Whether that thing is the space within, upon or around the work itself, it’s perfectly clear that indeed nothing is hidden.

Guillermo Pfaff (b.1976, Barcelona) studied art at Escola Massana in Barcelona from 1995 to 1999. Following his formal studies Pfaff worked in various media but painting soon became his most recurrent language. The decision to focus on painting involved a certain degree of self-criticism: the artist conceptualized the pictorial process in search of an approach that suited his circumstances, free of excess. From 2002 to 2005 he left Spain to live in Paris followed by Berlin. He returned to Barcelona the following year and produced a number of works at Hangar, the art production center, where he became a resident artist from 2009 to 2011. He has exhibited in various group and solo exhibitions throughout Spain since 1999, including such venues as Galeria Trama, Barcelona; JiM Contemporani, Barcelona; Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (CA2M), Madrid; Piramidón, Barcelona; and Palau de Casavells, Girona, among others. Inside-Out is Pfaff’s inaugural U.S. exhibition.