Juan Uslé: Open Night

The work of Juan Uslé reflects on the possibilities of painting. His works possess a rhythmic and sensual intensity that emerges from a play of colour and the nuances of pattern and gesture. The canvases in this exhibition, which range from the intimate to the very large, have evolved slowly over days or weeks. Each emerges from the process with a distinct character.

Uslé’s rhythmic abstractions, constructed with translucent layers of handmade saturated colour, evoke the environs and energy of his homes in Northern Spain and New York City. In his paintings Uslé exploits the nature of opposites: between organic and geometric forms, randomness and order, and the simultaneous physicality of paint and its ability to disappear into sheer, ethereal surfaces and illusions of light.

In many ways the works in this exhibition are images of passing time. Uslé paints with a deliberate slowness, often at night, to the rhythm of his pulse and breathing. The vertical lines in these paintings could be read as intervals between one heartbeat and the next. Uslé’s paintings call attention to the experiential and make us conscious of time and space, reminding us of the importance and range of all our senses.

Image: Installation view, Juan Uslé, Open Night, 2018. Photo: Stephen White & Co,