Artist: Rafa Forteza
Dates: September 10th to October 30th 2020

“It’s what happens. Standing in front of Rafa Forteza’s work, we are invaded by colour. Colour with a huge spatial, almost physical, power. We enter into a loop. We fall into his assembly of post-geometric and pro-organic shapes, attracted by a chaotic and dynamic force which has been released from gravity so it can expand. The vitality of Forteza’s art is a way of describing the world, but also of taking languages we already know and configuring them into something new. Sculpture, painting, collage and installations are his maps, where he traces turbulence, depth, complex biomorphic forms and even psychedelic explosions. He involves us in a register in which the abstraction is overt and no longer simply the selection of a style. And then it’s what happens. We enter into a loop.

Heir to the Spanish and German informalist and gestural tradition in the second half of twentieth century, Rafa Forteza is considered one of the most significant creators of contemporary Spanish art, establishing a clear dialogue between abstraction and figuration, but also an intense debate between reality and concept. Formally, much of his work could also be related to the Art Povera, for their stylish sculpture  creations, or the Art Brut and abstract expressionism, but overall his work reflects that pure creativity which is not contaminated by imitating established models, intentionally designed with a certain primitive air, which is looking for a language based on essential shapes, like the cross or the human face, taken to a maximum schema, using short strokes, circles, false collages, in his known folded sculptures and the newest tech sculptures.

Rafa Forteza, born in 1955 in Mallorca, Spain. He’s had solo exhibitions in galleries and museums like L21, Kewenig Mallorca, Pelaires, Joan Miró Foundation, The State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg, Kunst Station Sankt Peter in Cologne among many others, and more recently at Es Baluard Contemporary Art Museum in Mallorca. His work has been regularly seen in international art fairs like ARCO Madrid, Art Basel o Art Cologne, anming others, and is part of collections like MoMA New York, Centro Nacional de Arte Reina Sofia Madrid, Centre Pompidou Paris, Collection DeutscheBank, La Caixa Collection, Münchner Kunstlerhaus Stiftung Munich… He has published artists books next to many poets and artists like Joan Brossa, José Carlos Llop, José Ángel Valente, Antonio Saura, and many others. This year, a monograph of his work “Más cara” was published by Printer Fault Press (Spain).