Virtual Exhibition

Regina Giménez Giménez

Regina Giménez
Start 03/03/2005
Exhibited from March 3th, to April 23th, 2005 in Fundació Privada Vila Casas

The futile

Although we would like to believe that a poem could change the world tomorrow, the truth is that a great deal of contemporary arts has lost all capacity for social change, beyond some eagerly sought scandal or the stamp that it can leave through the intimate dialogue that it may establish with each spectator. And this is no small matter. In particular, painting is on the way to becoming something similar to jewellery: an object in whose uniqueness and uselessness lies the sense of its beauty. This is not something bad, it is perhaps even liberating factor. Art, as the documentary film maker John Grierson stated, is always trying to decide whether it...

EXHIBITION PAINTINGS: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

la casa vista
2004
Painting
Collage on wood

When we immerse ourselves in Regina’s universe the space/time dimension seems to disappear. We perceive multiple overlapping planes of collage, configuring a reality which only the artist could have constructed. We can imagine the artist in her studio, surrounded by cuttings which to our untrained eye appear random, but which she skilfully and patiently understands and lays out on the canvas to create her landscapes. She patiently composes with a meticulous eye, giving form to, in this case, the entrance to a home.

glace
2004
Painting
Collage on wood

The piece glace is suspended in time. The artist has endowed it with a deliberate atemporality. The ochre and brownish palette reminds us of Polaroids faded by the passing of time, while the typeface is reminiscent of the 1950’s. The picture’s title also helps to evoke a sense of stalled time, frozen, inert and motionless.

your eyes are windows
2002
Painting
Collage on wood

Regina often involves us in story narratives within her works. They are freighted with a poetic air and vintage iconography. Harking back to Soviet-era posters or in this case film posters from the 1940’s, the artist makes use of the presence of time to subject us to her personal interpretation of poetic metaphors, realised here in collage and with a reduced palette.

guardatemps II
2002
Painting
Collage on wood

The central image, framed by a large clock-face, is of what appears to be a family. Although the figures are mute and difficult to read, there is a rather intimate aspect to the scene. To a certain extent we feel ourselves witnesses to the visualisation of an event from the artist’s memory. Could timekeeper II be a childhood memory she has strived to immortalise? Time seems to be a constant in Regina’s oeuvre. As if what is truly important is that which manages to survive in the form of a past memory.

panoramic
2004
Painting
Collage on wood

panoramic appears to be a homage to Edward Hopper and his painting Nighthawks. With a similar composition and palette, Giménez produces her own vision of interior vs exterior space. The figures in her piece also have their backs to the viewer or are oblivious to being seen. However, panoramic is more matterist and shows a fine balance between mild figuration and a geometric abstraction made from cuttings. It is only after seeing the piece in its totality that we can apprehend the space conceived by the artist.

dernière minute
2003
Painting
Collage on wood

A train or bus station, or any other type of station, or simply a place which involves waiting. With dernière minute we are part of a frozen postcard. The last moment of waiting without knowing what is coming, without knowing if it will arrive or not. We feel ourselves to be part of an intimate space, we notice the feeling, excitement for what is to come or desolation after a departure. We find ourselves faced with an introspective and solitary journey into the artist’s memory which manages to empathically compel us to experience it more personally than we would have wished.

vendida
2004
Painting
Collage on wood

vendida is a devastating image. A family home is sold and becomes part of the sadness of someone waving goodbye to their happy childhood. vendida makes no use of any Pop contrivances or ostentation. It is a memory that seems very real, even for those who have not experienced it. vendida is introverted and conceals a story under its disciplined composition. It is a story for everyone, camouflaged under an aura of contemporary art, without any need for social change, artistic trend or artifice.

rouge
2004
Painting
Collage on wood

The title of this piece is a clear reference to its predominant colour. It plays with the powerful visual impact of a warm colour set against a cold past. Giménez’s works evoke an extreme sense of nostalgia, especially in those which recognise their past in their own temporality. The viewer, however, experiences a certain melancholy, knowing that, to a certain degree, they are viewing what seem to be fetishes from the past of another’s life. These locations sited outside time seem to be part of a past collective memory.

a miró
2002
Painting
Collage on wood

This work is a small-scale homage to Joan Miró and the piece he did for Joan Prats’s hat shop. Giménez revisits Miró’s work and includes images of hats in her own piece. A Miró displays a slightly more dynamic composition than those to be found in the rest of the pieces in the exhibition. Despite being not so static, it still manages to evoke and recall the past. Not only due to the style of the figures, but also the almost monochromatic palette.

au dehors
2004
Painting
Collage on wood

This piece can be seen as a link to a facet of Regina's present work. It connects with pieces from the series L’architecture d’aujourd’hui and others she has done with the Edital’ull collective, of which she is a member. They display complex and impossible architecture. As if a transversal cut has been made across the structure of certain buildings and we, the viewers, can examine or spy on what is happening inside. Empty of people, they present an open catalogue for whoever wishes to see inside.