Fasim I WAS HERE! (Portraits and Caprices)

Opening Thursday the 7th of April, from 7.30 pm. Exhibition from the 8th of April till the 16th of May 2011.

FASIM returns to the city of his birth and growth as a writer 25 years ago, with his latest series of work which coincides with the seventh anniversary of our MONTANA GALLERY space. With all of these incentives, it promises to be one of those dates to remember always.

[Fasim Was Here (2011). Mixed media on canvas. 2 x 2 m.]

I WAS HERE! is the result of a series of work done in various formats, produced exclusively for its presentation in Barcelona. Created using a variety of paint and techniques, and canvas collages, they have come to represent imaginary portraits of personal friends, both present and absent, of the artist. Minor characters, self-portraits, and grotesque paintings groups of figures, this is a wild return to color and characters.

[Retrato imaginario de Ure-PipiUrellas (2011). Acrylic on canvas. 1,5 x 1,5 m.]

“I WAS HERE!” in graffiti jargon means “I have been here and left my sign of having existed”. The same thing happens with painting. The paintings present today are those into which the painters put their essence, their resolution, and their debris, in a moment of earthly existence. This need to leave a trace of our lives, to create colossal pyramids, write our names in rock, in fresh cement, on a tombstone, or scratch marks with keys, or tag with a felt-tip pen or with fresh paint on canvas, is something innate in all of us. All of these are signs of existence which highlight this human impulse to leave something after our transition to an unknown and inevitable afterlife. There is great poetry in such gestures.

[Autoretrato (2011). Acrylic on canvas. 73 x 60 cm.]

In this exposition, we will all see that, after 100 years, only the paintings remain. It’s through these that the hollow eyes of the painter may see us. This quest of leaving a physical piece of us is how we… “play a trick on time, and wink at death and eternity!” (Fasim)

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