In Between Space, Time and a Pattern of Chaos

Seven artists – as dissimilar in their idiosyncratic individual grasps as they are bound by their relations to a diversity of intersecting spheres, rationales and aesthesias in the multidimensional matrix of alternative contemporary currents – meet in between space, time and a pattern of chaos.

A cohesion connecting the work of Julia Benz, Phil Ashcroft, Aris, Will Barras, O.Two, David De La Mano and Alberto De Blobs is less constructed by a common program than based on shared sensibilities and affiliations. Although we can safely assume that most of the artists shown have worked in the urban surrounding without permission at one point or another, that alone is not it. Urban Art with its blurry border zones constitutes an artistic – of course urban – jungle hideout where a communality is found which is most analogous to Wittgenstein's idea of family resemblance. Not everyone shares one particular denominator, but all exhibit one or another trait belonging to a shared still broader spectrum.

Lines and grids of one dimension may skew and bend toward another, loose cannon painterliness may mingle with delicately contrived graphics, inmidst a thousand plataus of figuration looms a loophole toward full fledged abstraction – or the other way 'round. An inevitable dialogue with graffiti-influenced contemporary muralism meets references to print-making-technique and aesthetics with Ben Day dots, shapes and fields. Forms resembling papercuts convey a distant echo of Matisse, while their significance is equally informed by a wielding of wallpaint honed during numerous assaults on structures in public space – authorized or not. Hermetic studio discipline suddenly engages in unlikely conversation with accessible glimpses of cinematic storyboard scenery. The stardust of spraypaint has its sprinkling blur interplay with the harsh contrasts of mask and stencil when the peculiarities of the tool are subject to investigation.

After all, there maybe still is that one content-wise common quality, connecting these artists on a more subtle level. Floating transparencies of layering or allusions to the jagged structures of urban dystopian landscapes, all the way to loudly coloured accumulations of impulsive gestures of paint – no matter where these artists wander about, there seems to always be an urge for exploration of depth. And where will depth ever be encountered if not In Between Space, Time and a Pattern of Chaos?

– Robert Kaltenhäuser

Artists

• Julia Benz
• Phil Ashcroft
• Aris
• Will Barras
• O.Two
• David De La Mano
• Alberto De Blobs

Opening

1. October 2020 – 7pm-10:30pm at Fousion Gallery, Barcelona

Exhibition

1.October – 20.November 2020