JAVIER PELÁEZ
Based in Mexico City, Javier Peláez creates work that considers the myriad possibilities involved with the construction and perception of reality. Depicting enigmatic imagery that can be construed as simultaneously materializing and deconstructing, Peláez’s pictorial language is set in an incessant swing between opposing states of being. Fascinated by polarities, Peláez’s subjects walk the line between figuration and abstraction, disintegration and formation, certainty and uncertainty.
The title of this exhibition references the 1962 poem, “Conversation with a Stone,” written by Wislawa Szymborska. Through an imaginary dialogue between a human speaker and a stone, Szymborska examines the human desire to understand everything about the world around us and the inevitable reality that it is an impossible quest. Essentially, the stone in this poem serves as a metaphor for all that is incomprehensible to us. With the paintings in this exhibition, Peláez invokes the primordial form of the stone, highly rendered in multi colors, juxtaposed against hard-edge, planar backgrounds. These cryptic forms seem to defy gravity, weightless yet imposing, their origins and trajectory unknown. The viewer is left with more questions than answers, as Peláez’s paintings seem to challenge their own existence.
Javier Peláez was born in 1976. His work has been exhibited extensively in Mexico. He currently lives and works in Mexico City.
EXHIBITIONS
At the Front Door of a Stone
JAVIER PELÁEZ: Broken Tree
MEDIA
INCONVERSATION: JAVIER PELÁEZ
