Cecilia de Torres, Ltd.

16 of 27 return

Intricate Calligraphies 2011 Winter



Intricate Calligraphies - Works by Bonevardi, Díaz, Lanzarini and Terán

INTRICATE CALLIGRAPHIES exhibits drawings by four contemporary artists who work obsessively with very small and intricate elements.  The conductive thread is the precision and meticulous execution they bring to their work.  

Instead of lines, Gustavo Bonevardi uses letters to “draw” objects, trees, and landscapes.  His ‘sheets of paper’ drawings, with scattered letters, lose all that was written on them.  Words disintegrate, and with them go their meanings, lost irretrievably.  When he uses watercolors, the letters dissolve into colorful abstract shapes.  Letters might be on the verge of landing on pages to form words, or might be flying off and away.  Or both, or neither - in any case there is no text, just the elements of it: letters and paper.
Bonevardi explains that his use of letters to draw pictures, instead of writing text, forces letters to function in a wholly different way, one that he is more at home with.  For Bonevardi “these drawings are like a writing assignments freed from the tyranny of spelling, punctuation and grammar, systems seemingly devised by petty bureaucrats to foil attempts to communicate.” 1

Gustavo Díaz can be a miniaturist; the building blocks of his delicate pencil compositions titled Recurring Systems are quarter inch by eighth inch rectangles that are repeated by the hundreds in agglomerations of varying density.  These drawings are so subtle that they are almost impossible to photograph.
Díaz bases his work on the mathematical and scientific theories about uncertainty and chaos of René Thom, Gilles Deleuze, Joseph Faurier and Ilya Prigogine, among others.
Argentine critic Patricia Rizzo wrote of the “romantic notion of rigorous craftsmanship” in Díaz work 2.  Although he uses a computer to prepare a work, the execution is strictly manual and requires the utmost care.  The smallest mistake and the work is discarded.  Each phase in Díaz’s development has added complexity and larger scale; he is now working on a 21 x 14 meter mural commission for a new building in Buenos Aires.

Ricardo Lanzarini says that when he starts a drawing he never premeditates any representation, they just happen as he goes along.  Although he maintains that there is no description of geographical location or landscape, he was marked in his childhood by the military dictatorship in Uruguay.  His experience of oppression is reflected in his detailed swarms of miniature figures that when viewed up close (a magnifying glass may be helpful), are as Lanzarini put it: “enraged mad men abusing others, sex and cries mingling to form a pack that attempts to mark its territory.”
Grace Glueck noted “his characters look as if they are exiled from a place or a time period, a comment on the vicissitudes of daily life in a time of global uncertainties and displacements.” 3 Many figures are naked, while others’ identity is revealed by their outfits, many wear a military cap, and many carry a suitcase, which Lanzarini maintains tells us about their voyage among us.
These tiny figures are drawn in ink; sometimes color is introduced by using pencil shavings, and sometimes relief is incorporated by Lanzarini in the scheme of the work, such as a small figure in delicate tissue paper that literally stands out from the crowd.

Julian Terán was born in a small town on the plains of Buenos Aires Province where the horizon is a long, straight line.  His interest in the texture of the landscape led him to study maps and map making.  To plan his compositions Terán uses a software program for drawing elevations on maps, but then by hand executes them in ink.
His latest series of works, titled Hot Spots, are large horizontal drawings of undulating lines, which are related to cartography.  The surface he depicts in these drawings, Terán explained, is like the skin or a mantle; dividing the inside from the outside spaces.  We intuitively know what is hidden under the surface by the way it is agitated from the depths.  What is underneath shapes the surface, in a similar way to how veins bulge the skin, or like magma roiling under the earth, creating islands or mountain ranges when it erupts.  

_________________________________
1 Conversation with the artist, 2011
2 Patricia Rizzo, “Estructuras disipativas: un punto en el infinito” in exhibition catalogue Universos Hipoteticos, Proyecto A, September, 2009
3 Grace Glueck, “Art Review; Working Words Into Images, Artists Become Storytellers.” September 24, 2004

 

 



Gustavo Bonevardi

b. 1960 New York - lives in New York City

Trained as an architect with a degree from Princeton University, Gustavo Bonevardi's artistic practices range from the meticulous to the monumental.  Working on a small scale, Bonevardi is known for his letter drawings - graphite images in which a multitude of minute yet precise letters of the alphabet tumble, spill, and stretch their way across the paper surface, creating undulating patterns or precise forms which, when viewed from a distance, conceal their tiny components. 

Bonevardi draws on his architectural background when working on his large scale urban projects, which include the memorial Tribute in Light (conceived in 2001 and illuminated each year in New York in commemoration of September 11th) and 10,000 Flower Maze (2011).  This latter work, a temporary project commissioned for Shenzhen's Citizen Plaza, China, was inspired by the European garden maze commissioned in 1756 by Emperor Qialong, and consisted of thousands of orange-safety cones arranged in patterns across the public space.  Lying somewhere between the scale of his drawings and urban projects, Bonevardi also creates watercolors, sculptures, objects and architecture from his studio in New York City.


Please click for CV and China Project Installation Photos


Julián Terán

b. 1977, La Plata, Argentina - lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Julián Terán was born in La Plata, Argentina, in 1977. He grew up in Monte, a rural town in the province of Buenos Aires, where he still resides and works. He graduated from the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes Prilidiano Pueyrredón (IUNA) and he was also trained at workshops and clinics with Fabiana Barreda and Rodrigo Alonso, among others. He has had solo exhibitions in galleries in Buenos Aires and has participated in several group exhibitions such as the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Rosario (MACRO), Museo Castagnino, Centro Cultural Recoleta, and Centro Cultural Borges, in Buenos Aires.

In 2011 he completed several major projects, including an extensive solo exhibition at the Museo J. R. Vidal de Corrientes, Argentina; an exhibition of his work in dialogue with Emilio Renart in the Multiespacio San Telmo and a large-scale mural work at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires (MAMBA).

His work has been successfully included in several international art fairs, including ArteBA, Buenos Aires, ArtBo, Bogotá, and Pinta, New York. He is also part of several important Latinamerican private collections.  

In addition to being a visual artist, Julián Terán is a musician and a composer of songs that fuse traditional Argentine folk rhythms with influences of electronic and alternative music. He was part of the band Undercolour, with whom he recorded an album, and currently performs as a soloist.




Gustavo Díaz

b. Buenos Aires, Argentina 1969 - lives and works in Buenos Aires

Gustavo Fabian Díaz was born in Buenos Aires in August of 1969. He studied at the National Technical School Otto Krause where his great interest in science was sparked. At 18 he was awarded a scholarship to study at the INTI National Institute of Industrial Technology to do research, and where he had access to a more hands on approach to science. It was then that he decided to dedicate himself fully to art. He graduated from the Prilidiano Puerrydon School of Fine Arts while studying music at the Manuel de Falla Institute. This interdisciplinary education led him to explore art-making from a scientific angle, proposing a bridge between art and modern scientific theories.

Some of his most engaging drawings are based on René Thom’s Catastrophe Theories and on Ilya Prigogine’s theories of Chaos and the behavior of hyper-complex systems, such as matrixes and other non-Euclidian geometry theorems. In 2002 he co-founded NOUS, a Center for Art and Design whose objective is interdisciplinary scientific research.


Please click for CV