Clarity and Incertitude Prudencio Irazabal

17.11.16-11.02.17

Clarity and Incertitude

The exhibition Clarity and Incertitude presents the latest works by Spanish artist Prudencio Irazabal in his fourth exhibition at Helga de Alvear gallery in Madrid. While in his previous series entitled Chromatomy (1993-1998) the artist unwove colour into its individual components, his focus is now on the spectrum of light. Working with pigments he aims to emulate the visual results obtained when working with additive light-colours.

In this body of work, the artist has further pursued his experimentation with the basic components of painting: colour, structure and materials. These elements are ever-present in his production and in this particular series they are used to experiment and explore light. A light materialised through colour.

Irazabal uses as a reference James Joyce’s assertion “Claritas is Quidditas”, taken from “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”. Clarity is the key, the essence, and the intelligible nature of things. In this way, clarity and light, model the composition on the canvas. The result is a dynamic coloured clarity, which the artist achieves not only by grading light, but rather through the precise formulation of colour. Thus, the spectrum of light is used as a chromatic category, as a transformative tool, which acts upon materials and form.