Murmurs of Light: Alejandro Corujeira

About

Hailing from Madrid and participating in the São Paulo Biennial this year, he is a pivotal player in the Geometría Sensible movement, which marks a revival in the Latin American tradition of geometric abstraction, the roots of which can be traced to the School of the South and the trailblazing Uruguayan artist Joaquin Torres-Garcia.

Murmurs of Light will reveal Corujeira’s innovative work in the genre of abstraction over the last twenty years. The exhibition will draw attention to his free-form and painterly language, which is distinctive from the coded style of Torres-Garcia’s followers. The artist focuses on the act of painting and the pigment itself, rather than a set of symbols and a mysterious subtext. He aims to lift the viewer up into a “philosophy of distance”, making a nod to the composer John Cage’s use of silence to release his audience from “the burden of psychological intention”.

The show will focus attention on the artist’s lively experimentation with shapes of writing in his recent pieces, on show at the São Paulo Biennial. A wall of small-format works that span the last 20 years and a minimalist sculpture will explore his unique way of seeing the world. The visitor will be invited to reflect on his poetic forms and colours, rather than search for hidden stories in abstract paintings. The word-like jottings capture the artist’s talent for creating texture in his work. The meticulous approach to chromatic range emphasises his poised compositions.

“I am interested in writing in terms of its appearance, its image. The drawing on the letters, even if it’s automatic and rushed, contains a sensitive impulse resulting from the sum of the shapes being laid down and what is meant to be communicated. In many cases the drawing alters the saying,” says Corujeira.

The gallery will offer a space to inspire contemplation from studying his pictures. Corujeira revives a long tradition of Latin American artists, who gravitate towards mystical transcendence through aesthetics. The artist looks back further than the twentieth century, borrowing from pre-Colombian prototypes of abstraction, as seen in the famous Peruvian Nazca Lines. This echoes the Bauhaus artist Anni Albers’ practice of drawing inspiration from pre-Colombian times in her Native American-style textiles. Yet Corujeira focuses on the more poetic elements of the ancients. The artist’s practice approaches the spirit of a Zen garden.