Opera Gallery Hong Kong will host a second group exhibition “Figures and Form” this winter, featuring a diverse work of arts through figurative expressions to abstract styles resembling curves of human body. The year-end exhibition, showcased from November 29 until December 31, 2019, will include a wide range of sculptures and paintings by six well-known artists from Spain and Latin America, namely Manolo Valdés, Pablo Atchugarry, Antonio Seguí, Fernando Botero, Federico Uribe and Roberto Matta.
Under the influence of different traditional and cultural backgrounds, all exhibiting artists find their own unique and profound way of showcasing their artwork through the subject or mediums used, and all have a commonality of speaking the same romantic language – Spanish. Together, artists satirize social and political circumstances surrounding them in a dark, yet humorous way.
Following the successful exhibition in Opera Gallery Singapore earlier in September, Uruguayan contemporary sculptor Pablo Atchugarry will be exhibiting one of his white marbled sculpture, Untitled 2003. Influenced by High Renaissance Italian sculptor Michelangelo, Atchugarry’s particular preference of marble works resembles the monoliths of early civilizations. Atchugarry describes the sculpturing process of marble as dramatic, with no ways of replacement when a piece has been taken out. His works are held as collections of the National Museum of Visual Arts of Montevideo and the Perez Art Museum in Miami.
Expressive form can be seen in sculptures by Spanish artist Valdés and Atchugarry. Both artists tend to reduce human figure into abstract forms, challenging viewers to rethink and reidentify the knowledge of materiality and interpret the subject of the artwork.
Federico Uribe, a Colombian artist, will be showcasing his artwork for the first time in Hong Kong. His craftsmanship consists of an unpredictable collaboration of sculpture and paints using everyday objects, such as screws used in General, bullets in Missed Target and books in The Eyes of Knowledge. Uribe encourages viewers to observe his artworks with proximity and from afar, to reveal different aesthetics from the various volumes, forms, textures and color reflected in the artwork. Moreover, the titles of his artworks are particularly important as they reveal the connection between language, literature and the objects he uses.
Pablo Atchugarry – Bronze Automotive yellow enamel, Antonio Seguí -Estar Contentos, Federico Uribe – Yellow Flower
Another artist who encourages close-ups and afar viewing of artworks is Antonio Seguí, a legendary Argentinian painter and printmaker renowned for his generally satirical, critiquing society and human nature artworks. Seguí utilizes cubist techniques through his repeated elements of vibrant colors and lines. Different perspectives unfold with each vibration and reflect the various angles of life of Segui’s imaginary metropolis life of the urb