Adrián Navarro

LOOPS

Galería Maior – Pollença

The paintings of Adrián Navarro are product of a dialectical reflection and a careful execution. After conceptualism, thought is inevitable in the process of artistic creation, therefore the problem lies in guessing what is reflected and what the method is. The artist uses a logical dialectic to think his paintings, as in his pictures he shows a number of elements that can usually be considered antithetical, facing gesture to geometry, background to figure, disorder to order, the virtual to the real, two-dimensional to volumetric. The game is attractive and paradoxical, since the viewer’s perception is subjected to an unusual exercise in painting, which generally responds to mere instinct or seeks immediate pleasure before an attractive combination of shapes and colors. An apparently informalist background made of gestural brushes and colourful patterns covered by a milky glaze functions as an illusory landscape. On that plane-background a powerful geometric figure emerges which seems perceptually rendered by a uniform grid of white dots that let you glimpse the inside, creating the effect of permeability and detachment on the viewer.

The artist’s training as an architect becomes apparent in his approach, showing architecture’s ultimate function: creating habitable spaces. Navarro’s visual exploration celebrates the dichotomy among physical confinement and expansive freedom in painting. This struggle between opposites symbolizes the pulsation of life that plays tensely with the role of our body in the artificial world.

Adrián Navarro lives and works in London. He started his artistic activity in New York in 2001, after graduating from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, School of Architecture.  In 2008 Navarro completed his art studies in Central Saint Martin´s College of Art & Design.

Recent solo shows include Espacio Rojo, Galería Pilar Serra, Madrid, 2013; Reflections, Maerz Contemporary, Berlin, 2012 and In&Out, 60 Threadneedle Street Art Space, London, 2012. He has been featured in group shows such as The Collection, Eastmen Gallery, Hasselt, Belgium, 2014; Geometry of Chance, Mirus Gallery , San Francisco, 2013; Premiere 2013, Maerz Contemporary, Berlin, 2013 and Cómplices del arte español contemporáneo, Fundación Canal, Madrid 2012.