ART-PRESENTATION: José Yaque-Maturation
Part of an exciting new generation of Cuban artists, José Yaque creates lush canvases that resemble molten rock, layers of the earth’s crust, or even aerial views of a landscape. His technique is singular: He mixes and applies paint thickly with his hands and covers it in plastic before slowly maneuvering the sheet across the surface.
By Dimitris Le
José Yaque’s special way of painting and his interrelation with his materials cause the resulting paintings, some of very large dimensions, to enhance the media he uses causing an apparent abstraction, with each work taking on a telluric and almost dramatic force. His drawings speak to us of the treasures inside great mining quarries. These “open-air mines”, as he calls them, reveals a relationship with nature, based on the beauty of the most refined stroke. The installations mix natural elements such as earth of different origins, stones, mineral components and recovered books, which are integrated into this substratum, then framed and eventually harbour a new genesis within each work. The choice of José Yaque as the artist who will inaugurate the new space of Galleria Continua in Rome with the exhibition “Maturation”, represents a continuation of the Cuban experience which began with the opening of Galleria Continua Havana. Yaque conceptually represents a bridge between Cuba and Rome. In the exhibition, Maturation, he presents a series of new paintings and an installation from the “Tumba Abierta” series, an archive in transformation made up of natural elements (plants, seeds, fruits, leaves); new forms of landscape where matter, colors and smells magically transport the viewer to other places. José Yaque’s paintings, material and vibrant, are like windows opening onto the landscape, molten rock that attaches itself to the canvas and acquires a new form. To mix and apply the colors he uses his hands, the force of gravity and vibrations, forming a magma that is transformed once more when he wraps the works with a plastic film. After the drying process is over, the artist removes the protective layer and the result is an eroded painting: the plastic has the same effect on the canvas that wind and water have on the earth’s surface. In front of a painting by Yaque, the viewer is captured by the movement and energy that emanates from it: the eye scans the canvas losing itself in its depth and rhythm, in the folds of the surface roughened by complex overlays of colour where everything becomes a dance that pulls you in in an all-enveloping way.
Info: Galleria Continua, The St. Regis Rome, Via Vittorio E. Orlando 3, Rome, Duration: 24/1-28/3/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 11:00-13:00 & 14:00-19:00, www.galleriacontinua.com
