Setting
Out
Charles Cowles Gallery is pleased to present JOSÉ MANUEL BALLESTER's first U.S. exhibition. Widely shown in Europe, BALLESTER is accomplished in both photography and painting. On view in this exhibition will be large paintings from the Puente de madera series. The title translates to wooden bridge, and the series undermines the optimism of "setting out" for a sunny day at the beach.
BALLESTER's works emit foreboding without being sinister. Neither fully realistic nor completely abstract, the paintings create an architectural space that appears at once enterable and otherworldly. His monumental, unpeopled compositions intrigue the viewer with their ambiguity and mystery.
About BALLESTER, Barbara Rose has written, "his dilemma as a young artist was how to express an innate facility that would have made him a master in the Renaissance or Baroque in an idiom that was entirely contemporary." He sublimates his technical ability to create a "spareness [that] is reticence rather than minimalism," which goes beyond pure beauty and yet stops short of the solely conceptual.
BALLESTER's
work is included in major public and corporate collections internationally,
including the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid;
and Mitsukoshi Collection, Japan.
The
exhibition will be on view at the Charles Cowles Gallery at 537 West 24th
Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues in Chelsea. Hours are 10am to 6pm, Tuesday through
Saturday. There will be a reception for
the artist Thursday, June 5, from 6-8
pm.
For further information or photographs, please contact the gallery.
Above image: Puente de
madera 1, 2002. acrylic on paper mounted on board, 39 1/8 x 120 5/8 inches