ART CITIES:Paris-Raúl Illarramendi

The subjects of Raúl Illarramendi´s paintings are just those irregularities, imperfections, traces of waste and wear found in public space. These traces or marks bear witness to human presence and activity, manifesting themselves in smudges, fingerprints, paint residues, dust layers etc. found on walls, sidewalks, garage doors, dirty car windows and other surfaces of lesser interest to the eye. Starting point for Illarramendi´s works is an accumulation of spontaneous photographs taken during walks in his urban surroundings.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Galerie Karsten Greve Archive

Raúl Illarramendi’s solo exhibition “Offerings” features new works from a series of paintings and drawings inspired by a historical event from his native country. This body of work, which as a whole is considered by the artist as a parallel project to his more traditional output, originated at the junction between a personal experience in Illarramendi’s family, in the midst of a natural disaster that affected his country, and a poorly documented historical event of great spiritual significance. During the night of the 29th of July 1967, a major earthquake shook the heart of Caracas, as well as other coastal towns near the capital destroying many buildings and causing considerable loss of life. Among the extensive material damage, the Caracas Cathedral was left mostly unscathed, if not for the cast-iron cross that fell from the highest point of its frontispiece. The cross fell flat on the pavement in front of the Cathedral leaving its imprint engraved on the ground. Amongst the people who witnessed the event, several accounts came forth claiming that the earth stopped shaking the instant the cross touched the ground, immediately prompting a collective claim of a miracle. This situation lasted only a few days until the authorities decided to remove the section of asphalt with the trace in order to better preserve the miraculous proof. The trace mysteriously disappeared from public view for many years. The starting point of Raúl Illarramendi’s project was an enigmatic image, a historical document, possibly one of the first photographs depicting the silhouette of the cross freshly imprinted on the asphalt. Raúl Illarramendi used the exact imprint of the cross silhouette as a template for his current series “Offerings no 1 – 12”, twelve large-format pictures in gouache and coloured pencil on acrylic resin. He had several casts of the cross made and subsequently worked the picture surfaces made of acrylic resin on the low-relief. Using gouache and water he painted several areas and supplemented them with colour by means of countless colored pencil lines. The artist chose the colour spectrum in reaction or in harmonious partnership with further photographic templates. For example, Raúl Illarramendi portrays the effect of the colored reflections from the stained-glass windows, flooding the interior of the church in which the imprint of the cross is kept. Just as religious belief and Venezuelan popular piety attributes healing powers to the cross as a votive image, Raúl Illarramendi’s gesture is an Offering that heralds hope for an end to Venezuela’s current critical state. “From the first image, the connections with my own artistic work began to become evident: the trace, the surface, the accident, the distance, the contact, the unintentional gesture, the memory…”. All these elements are indeed present in Illarramendi’s long lasting interest in reproducing traces left by human activity, with an emphasis on confronting the spontaneity of the traces with the meticulous endeavour of his drawing technique. Found on walls, sidewalks, gateways and doorways, these traces are photographed and chosen for their composition and for their evocative power. The artist thus accumulates a repertory of images that serve as inspiration for his compositions.

Info: Galerie Karsten Greve, 5 rue Debelleyme, Paris, Duration: 27/6-22/8/20, Days & Hours: Tue-sat 10:00-19:00, https://galerie-karsten-greve.com