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| Carlos
Vega , What a Job!, 2007, Oil and collage on canvas,
13 3/4" X 10 3/4" |
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James Harris
Gallery is pleased to present its first solo exhibition by New-York
based Spanish artist Carlos Vega. For the past decade, Vega has
been using the medium of collage to explore rifts between the past
and present, the fantastic and mundane. Making flea markets his
playground, Vega collects the documents that past generations have
left behind, finding inspiration not only in personal letters and
diaries, but also ledger pages and legal records. Vega then adds
his own painted elements, drawing attention to these found documents
that have lost both meaning and value. Over time the relationship
between Vega's appropriated texts and painted interventions has
evolved, the poetic statements embracing more humor and even irreverence.
Contrasting
the lighter whimsy of many of Vega's collages will be two etchings
on lead, a new medium for the artist but related to his early training
in printmaking. These works embrace a darker surrealism, populating
pastoral settings with figures that are nude and sometimes disembodied.
Vega's expressionistic marks on the metal plates, spare in both
detail and composition, are evocative, particularly in their minimal
context. Do these scenes reflect the past, present, or future, or
all three?
While different
in technique and effect from the collages, Vega's lead works powerfully
bring fantasy together with elements of everyday experience, drawing
a common thread between these two distinct aspects of the artist's
current practice. Moreover, like the found documents reanimated
by the artist, Vega imbues the lead, with all of this material's
history and associations, with new life.
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My
Practice , 2007
Acrylic and collage on canvas
13" X 11" |
How
Quiet , 2005
Acrylic and collage on canvas
17" X 16" |
Forgotten
Gods, 2008
Oil paint on lead
30" X 30" |
Pure
Science, 2007
Acrylic and collage on canvas
11 3/4" X 9 3/4" |
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Mrs
Ward and Miss Jones in Constantinople, 2007
Acrylic and collage on canvas
13 7/8" X 9 7/8"" |
Clean-up
Site , 2007
Acrylic and collage on canvas
18 3/4" X 10 3/4" |
Just
Looking III , 2007
Acrylic and collage on canvas
14" X 9 3/4" |
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