MALAGA.- The Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga is presenting Familias mínimas (Rojo, amarillo y azul) [Minimum Families (Red, yellow, blue)], an exhibition curated by Fernando Francés. In this exhibition, 10 paintings explore the pictorial space as a topic of reflection, focussing on concepts such as the frame, the support medium or the sides. Sevillian artist Rubén Guerrero’s paintings are anti-narrative. He designs impossible architectures and uses trompe l’oeil to “deceive the eye.” With each layer, he creates an opacity in which images of places, structures, numbers and letters are represented. He creates an intuitive world parallel to the real and tangible one, in which fullness and emptiness alternate. The viewers find themselves having to decide whether they are looking at the front or the back of this reality.

“There are some aspects of my work that have clearly changed and that are related to the procedural and methodological scope of creating the picture. The encounter with the painting now involves three dimensional arrangements, such as sculptures and models to support the picture. I am increasingly inclined to find a more liminal position between the recognisable and the unusual, a more radical approach to abstraction from, paradoxically, figuration. I am interested in eliciting a feeling of doubt in the viewer,” explains Rubén Guerrero about the intention of his work.

For Fernando Francés, curator of CAC Málaga, “Guerrero’s paintings are characterised by the organised work of layers of colour superimposed in thick brush strokes in a divided plot. Intrigued by the possibilities of the creative process, each of Guerrero’s works stands on its own and defends itself. His works forego the representation of space. They are not picture “windows.” He is fascinated by the point at which figurative reality and the reality of the painting’s surface coincide. He is a very meticulous artist and can take a very long time to complete one painting, changing small patches until he reaches the perfection he needs to consider the painting finished. The entire process is full of painting ploys, tricks and lures to create multiple escape routes for interpretation from unusual planes and impossible realities.”

There are some clear notions of a recapitulation in the works, which are exhibited in the Projects Room of CAC Málaga. For Rubén Guerrero, the exhibition is an opportunity to present his most emblematic motifs and references, which have been a constant in his works in recent years. These motif “Families” can be categorised into several groups. On the one hand, pseudo-architectural structures such as in S/t (a(b(c))) (2015) or S/t (la medición) [S/t (the measurement] (2016); and on the other hand, folded works such as S/t(la mitad de lo que ves) [S/t (half of what you see)] (2016) or Composición con amarillo P.M. [Composition with yellow P.M.] (2015), and virtually airtight walls that completely enclose the depicted surface, as in S/t (línea de área) [S/t (line of air)] (2015) or S/t (bucchi trasversale) [S/t (transversal holes)] (2014). And from this comes the title of the exhibition, Familias mínimas (Rojo, amarillo y azul).

For years, Guerrero has been assembling an ever-larger archive of images, documenting a fragmented reality that caught the attention of the artist, who was convinced of their power to stir the creative process. These images are systematically recorded, both digitally and manually, coexisting and associated with others appearing and disappearing in the compositional process. With the most absolute freedom, the artist brings together the most diverse and most contradictory of elements in his works, contrasting formal structures that expand the artist’s universe with a metaphor. He builds an intuitive world, parallel to the real and tangible world. Guerrero’s pictorial space is at once physically palpable and profoundly psychological, coming from a perspective that is rooted in personal experience.

His images alternate between fullness and emptiness. They form fragmented realities which, when transposed to the two dimensions, build a parallel reality in which each plane is composed of hundreds of layers, realities and material. For Guerrero, the values of painting are in all of the parameters extracted from its interpretation, the very idea behind the preliminary concept, the encounter with the viewer, in addition to the implementation of the idea.

He incorporates various references in his works as sources, and as a means of learning and solving problems, expressions derived from Minimal, Hard Edge or Pop Art. And there are many artists who have influenced him at some point in his career, from the Flemish painters to more contemporary artists such as Heimo Zobernig, Richard Aldrich, Raoul de Keyser or Daniel Buren, who obfuscates the motif and the background of his works, an idea that was the main theme in them. And from there arose Buren’s idea to use the line as a “visual tool,” the regular and repetitive action of which set the painting at zero degrees, turning it into a neutral and anti-narrative image. This is how since 1965, Buren has used striped fabrics to create pictures from which all narrative content has been removed. The tension between feeling and sensation, between expressiveness and inexpressiveness, between the artist’s desire to eliminate his imprint and the viewer’s interest in finding it, is the channel through which Rubén Guerrero’s work flows. In this regard, some critics have described Guerrero’s paintings as representing a split logic that tilts, with no clear beginning or end, between the abstract and the figurative, although the author feels closer to figuration.

This split is evident in S/t (la mitad de lo que ves) (2016) and in Composición con amarillo P.M (2015). In the first, S/t (la mitad de lo que ves) (2016), a blue background has been invaded by an apparent paper and cardboard model that is aptly folded, glued, cropped and folded once again, in which the viewer perceives a circle, a shape which the latter contrives since it cannot really be seen, because part of the “reality” is missing. On the other hand, in Composición con amarillo P.M (2015), the main shape is folded again to create a triangle. Its colours – blue, white and yellow with pink detail – coincide with S/t (pura apariencia neoplasticista P.M.) [S/t (pure neoplasticist appearance)] (2016), as though this work had been drenched, folded and hung in another reality to help create Composición con amarillo P.M (2015), in which the boxes and the volumes of colours play the leading role.

The last two works referred to above are undeniably related in a direct way to the neoplasticist aesthetics of Piet Mondrian, a fact which Guerrero betrays in the subtitle “P.M.” of both of the works. Guerrero borrows recognisable features of Mondrian’s work to illustrate opposing attributes that co-exist in his works, such as the baroque and the minimalist, the abstract and the figurative, the emotional and the distant, the sublime and the banal. What is more, S/t (pura apariencia neoplasticista P.M.) (2016) contains a device often used by the Sevillian artist, in which various letters and numbers appear forward and backward, such as: N, 1, 6 and 7.

This device is also used in S/t (2014) or in El centro del centro [The centre of the centre] (2017). This is not a false enigma. These typographies do not refer to anything. Guerrero uses written language as a serial image from the industrial world. He sees it as visual art material, a metapictorial element he uses to give the work a more genuine dimension. The geometric elements of his works – the circles, squares, angles, tangent outlines, are interconnected, helping to shape a more complex universe. Likewise, in El centro del centro (2017) there is a door with a curved lintel and a blue background, which throws the balance of the composition off and challenges the claim announced by the title. These works, in which the angles and the colour red predominate, are exhibited together at CAC Málaga, creating an illusion of full and empty spaces that is so characteristic of the artist’s work.

This illusion is a device that he uses in other works and it has a dual function. It determines the consistency of the surface depicted, clarifying its two dimensionality, and presents a part of the work that exists but does not reveal itself. In S/t (buchi trasversale) (2014), we see smooth red stone on which some holes reveal the theme being depicted, creating shadows. The term “buchi” refers to the characteristic holes of artist Lucio Fontana’s works, and is a formal acknowledgement by Guerrero of the latter’s influence on him. Another of the works presented in the exhibition, S/t (línea de área) (2015), does not show the aforementioned holes, but the cracks and splits of the same stone, creating volumes in the depiction of this “sculpture.”

In effect, Guerrero keeps to the surface. And he does this materially by combining oil and enamel so that his painting reveals its condition as matter and the picture expands before our eyes, belying any illusion of depth. He is intrigued by the point at which figurative reality meets the reality of the painting surface itself, which he creates using trompe l’oeil (a French term meaning to “deceive the eye”). This art technique attempts to deceive the eye by playing with the architectural surroundings, real or not, with point of view, shading and other optical effects, and with simulation, achieving an enhanced or substitute reality. The technique has been used in painting for centuries and there are different ways to use it, such as adding elements that lend a real and foreign appearance to painting, or attempting to simulate a certain type of texture or relief, or objects or compositions with false backgrounds. Examples of trompe l’oeil are found in all of Guerrero’s works, but it is much more pronounced in S/t (a(b(c))) (2015) and S/t (la medición) (2016). In these works, we see cylinders of different sizes painted in a lush red with synthetic enamel, and even see the glow caused by the penetration of the light. Spatially recomposed and recombined, these make up the sculptural piece that appears in S.T. (a(bc)) (2015) and as a diagonal pole in S/t (la medición) (2016).

Finally, in the diptych S/t (1 azul + 1 negro + ½ blanco) (2017) [S/t (1 blue + 1 black + ½ white)], a negative of a star shaped object (which is missing its points) offsets the rhythm of distribution of elements over the surface of the canvas. Both objects, the star and the door, appear in studies on paper or in models used in other projects. Likewise, the purpose of all of Rubén Guerrero’s works is to question the pictorial reality and study its dual condition, oscillating between credible fiction and contrived reality.

Rubén Guerrero (Utrera, Seville, 1976) is the main representative of a generation of Andalusian painters. He explores the limits of painting and its new paths of development. He has held individual exhibitions such as Diferido, reversible y sin escala, [Deferred, reversible and not to scale] F2 Galería, Madrid, 2016; La réplica afectiva [The affective replica], Galería Rafael Ortiz, Seville, 2016; Nivel cero [Level zero], Galería Luis Adelantado, Valencia, 2014; Entre fraudes y hechos [Between frauds and facts], Galería Luis Adelantado, Mexico, 2013; Anverso [contra] Reverso [Front [versus] Back], Centro de las Artes de Sevilla C.A.S. Monasterio San Clemente, Seville, 2007; Pinturas [Paintings], Galería Icaria, Alcalá de Guadaíra, Seville, 2001 or Especies de espacios [Species of spaces], Altamira Gallery, Gijón, Asturias, 2001. He has also participated in group exhibitions in various galleries, foundations and museums around the world. Rubén’s works have received recognition both in Spain and abroad, and are included in such notable collections as the Pérez Art Museum of Miami (PAMM), the DKV Health and Medical Insurance Collection, the Juan Entrecanales Collection, the Fundació per amor a l’Art Collection, the Banco Sabadell Collection and the Coca-Cola Collection, among others.