The show aims to create a dialogue between the two artists, confronting their personal approaches to the bi-dimensional surface as a space in which display their aesthetic and procedural imaginary. In the body of works “Profili” Gianni Pellegrini defines light out of the contrast to darkness, penetrating the indefinable limit which separates them. The absence of shadows – marked by the absence of defined shapes – underlines the fight between light and darkness. Brightness and obscurity appear as parts of an homogeneous matter developed through impalpable multiple states. Pellegrini’s paintings are originated by an accumulation of imperceptible acrylic layers left decant on the surface. The absence of brush strokes brings the gaze to wonder on the surface getting progressively absorbed by looking for coordinates. Pellegrini’s paintings merge the contradictory characteristics of physicality and immateriality: they are concrete and present but at the same time unfathomable and suspended. They create a tense structure of light-filled and an oscillating depth. Inspired by his former career in business administration, Ignacio Uriarte has developed a language able to translate this experience – based on the use of analogue media and mechanical instruments – into an aesthetic one. Weaving layers of straight parallel and orthogonal lines, Uriarte’s paper works resemble the way a printer or a weaving machine works: despite the rather mechanical process, the unplanned circumstances which characterize human made processes give birth to vibrant pictorial appearances. The use of almost empty markers determines the lines to be stronger at the beginning and to turn more transparent and lighter towards the center recalling certain photographic experiments in the darkroom. The choice of the most standard office-universe colors (black, blue, red and green) matches the pictoriality with which signs are displayed: Uriarte transcends the standard utilitarian flatness in favor of an unforeseen atmospheric cromia.

Ignacio Uriarte (b. 1972 in Krefeld, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. He studied audiovisual arts at the Centro de Artes Audiovisuales in Guadalajara, Mexico from 1999 to 2001. Uriarte’s solo exhibitions include Apropos Papier: Ignacio Uriarte, Bürokünstler, Leopold Hoesch Museum, Düren (2018); Bürozeit, Kunstmuseum Villa Zanders, Bergisch Gladbach (2015); Unos y Ceros, MARCO, Vigo (2014); Acht Studenten zählen, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (2014); Binaries, UMOCA (Utah Museum of Contemporary Art), Salt Lake City; Line of Work, The Drawing Center, New York City; Productive Inefficiency, Skuc gallery, Ljubljana (all 2013); Workspace, DAZ (Deutches Architektur Zentrum), Berlin (2012); Works, Sala Rekalde, Bilbao (2011); The invention of letters, PICA Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth (2010) and Tan sencillo como una línea ó un círculo, Laboratorio 987, MUSAC, Leon (2008).