Black & White

March – May 2023

Cristina Gamón – Sergio Rocafort – Angel Peris – Marina Marco – Salvador Jiménez-Donaire

Shiras Galería inaugurates the exhibition "Black & White", in its Espacio Refugio, an exhibition organized in collaboration with the Mainel Foundation and made up of five artists recognized in the last contest of the Mainel Foundation National Painting Prize, where unpublished works will be exhibited, elaborated from its different styles, with a common element: black and white.

Cristina Gamón (Valencia – 1987) participates with an installation of eight unpublished photographs, exhibited for the first time in Valencia, in the form of a tondo made during her stay in the Arctic. Her works are distinguished by unparalleled freshness through a complex technique of unreal images. These are capable of transporting us to the oceanic abysses in which our mere presence is astonished by the beauty of color.

Next Sergio Rocafort (Valencia – 1995) presents a two-piece installation, where he explores the limits of figuration from the concept of image decoding and encryption. Thus, the recognizable suggested from the idea of ​​light and depth becomes the object of construction and deconstruction of a formal investigation that equates space and fragment in pursuit of interpretive multiplicity. The process, therefore, is the conceptual key in this project, as it seeks to stop the viewer before a language - pictorial - that is in itself a place of knowledge.

On the other hand, Marina Marco (Elche – 1999) presents us with a large-format canvas made in oil and spray. Through the language of abstraction, the artist from Alicante develops stages that manage to captivate the processual and conceptual vestiges, in which she recreates her characteristic folds to investigate the links between the various disciplines of artistic expression such as painting, sculpture or sewing, with the aim of in order to raise awareness about the cultural and behavioral significance of this specialty.

Next, Angel Peris (Valencia – 1993) shows us an organic installation made up of papers of different sizes in black ink mounted as bodies that are transported rolled up. The artist's intention stems from research on natural materials and their incorporation into plastic art which, closely related to the place where it is perceived, expands in space, resizing it and enveloping the human being in its material.

Lastly, Salvador Jiménez-Donaire (Seville – 1994) participates with a chromatic composition in neutral tones elaborated as a result of a reductive process of mark-making in which he explores the notions of patience, continuity and duration through his language. All this, with the aim of potentiating the idea of ​​pause and contemplative waiting; in opposition to the current performance policies (more speed, more production) in favor of a way of doing things that requires thoroughness and attention.

Finally, Jorge Sebastián Lozano, president of the Mainel Foundation, has expressed his gratitude to Shiras, for his generous collaboration in the XXV edition of the Mainel Foundation National Painting Award, an initiative that seeks to "help young artists in the difficult transition towards professionalization ”, explains Sebastian. For this reason, he adds, "the Mainel Foundation has always had the collaboration of relevant Valencian galleries, which give visibility to the selected artists and, if they deem it appropriate, initiate commercial collaborations with some of them."

This exhibition can be visited at Shiras Galería until May 13, from Monday to Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.