Poppy Seeds, 2021
oil pastel, charcoal, pencil on Saunders Waterford Paper
113 x 153 cm
OLSEN proudly presents ‘The Legacy of Water’, an exhibition of new paintings by José Luis Puche (b. Spain, 1976) curated by Kate Smith.
“In my work, water is the driver that transforms everything, the driver of my drawings, created by water splashing and pounding the paper, occasionally with some violence, as nothing new can exist without the material and visual onslaught of what had formerly been there. Water nourishes us, connects continents and begets life, even beyond the confines of our planet, in the universe, where water might be a sign of life. Thus, water applied to drawing can be understood as the last communicative language, from constructive and procedural sketching to its transformation into artistic matter, according to how the water has fallen upon the charcoal and the paper, how it might organically drip down, tracing its own furrows, rivers and tributaries, dragging down all the matter along its course until whatever is not meant to be part of the work has dripped onto the ground. What is left behind, by way of evidence, of the action, the drive and the force is the legacy that water leaves on the work, what infuses life and existence to it.
These works are reflections on victory, light, magic, unsettling landscapes and objects that quietly connect with the observer, an array of situations that rather than belong to the realm of images, actually pertain to the eye of the beholder, who arranges and interprets them – based on his or her past experience – in order to grant the observer’s very own and even intimate sense to every one of the works.” José Luis Puche
Exhibition runs 19 January – 05 February 2022
Olsen Gallery
63 Jersey Road, Woollahra NSW 2025
T: +61 2 9327 3922
info@olsengallery.com
Tuesday – Friday 10am – 6pm, Saturday 10am – 5pm
