WAYS OF PERCEPTION

20.03 - 09.05.2015

Nils Stærk is proud to present the exhibition Ways of Perception, the second solo show with Mexican artist and architect Eduardo Terrazas (b. 1936).

The exhibition presents a number of diverse series from different stages of Terrazas’ long artistic production. The works are bound together through the common interest in structure and tactility – themes that seem also to connect Terrazas’ work as an artist and as an architect.

In the main gallery works from two different series are presented: Deconstruction of an image and Cosmos. The three works from the series Deconstruction of an image are panels painted with automotive lacquer giving them a smooth surface. The images themself seem to have been disrupted or deconstructed in the way they have been taken apart and put together anew. The strategy of composing a certain structure only to overcome it with its own means is a lead motif in Terrazas’ work and is put forward in the exhibition from the beginning.

The works from the Cosmos series are images made with coloured yarn. The works apply a technique that has been used for centuries by the indigenous Mexican tribe Huichol. Wooden panels are covered with Campeche wax into which threads of yarn are laid to compose a pattern made by Terrazas. The eight images from the Cosmos series explore the possible variations of a chosen structure, which seem to become indefinite when lines and colours are juxtaposed.

On the wall leading to the second exhibition space a number of drawings from the Constellations series are presented. The works are inspired from the representation of the stars and galaxies of the macrocosm, made by a multiplicity of dots.  In these works on paper it again becomes visible how Terrazas chooses to set certain limits for him self and how he then tests or destabilizes the very same limits.

In the second space two paintings from the series Universe are on display together with drawings from the series Textures. Compared to the other works in the exhibition these works seem more complex with their many layers of paint and patterns and the lack of a clear structure. At the same time the works follow very well Terrazas’ continuous explorations of shapes and surfaces.

Seen together the combination of works in the exhibition showcase a decade long artistic investigation of the force of abstract imagery. The diversity in materials increases the presence of each work and heightens the beholders bodily awareness of concepts such as space, colour, form, and texture.

Terrazas got his breakthrough when he became artistic director for the design of the Program of Olympic Identity for the Olympic games in Mexico City, in 1968. In 1972 he had his first solo exhibition Tablas at the Fine Arts Palace in Mexico City. The following decades Terrazas primarily worked as an architect and it is only within the last years Terrazas has fully dedicated himself to visual art. In 2012 he gathered his visual artworks and edited and published the book: Eduardo Terrazas Possibilities of a Structure, which lead to the rediscovery of his artistic career. Since then he has exhibited at Proyectos Monclova in Mexico City, at the 11th Sharjah Biennale in 2013, and at the inauguration of Jumex Foundation Museum in Mexico City a.o..Currently Terrazas has a solo show at Museo de Arte Carillo Gil in Mexico City, and later this month he will participate in the survey exhibition Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980 at MoMA, New York.