{"id":43404,"date":"2019-07-18T15:31:59","date_gmt":"2019-07-18T19:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/?p=43404"},"modified":"2019-07-18T15:42:33","modified_gmt":"2019-07-18T19:42:33","slug":"jose-manuel-ciria-at-christopher-cutts-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/?p=43404","title":{"rendered":"Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria at Christopher Cutts Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The exhibition A Beautiful Day with a Small Storm<\/em> at the Christopher Cutts Gallery is a unique one. A month before its opening in June, the paintings by Madrid artist Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria were a mere glimmer in the artist\u2019s eye. The works were in fact created in a studio directly above the exhibition space. In that sense, what is on display has descended from above, their generation a touch miraculous in the speed of their execution.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria in studio at Christopher Cutts Gallery, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ciria exudes the personable confidence of someone who is at ease in his own skin. This is a way of saying that Ciria inhabits his work, and that the life and breath of his canvases are closely woven into the artist\u2019s own persona. The bright explosions of paint on the walls of the gallery are the visible traces of the artist\u2019s lived experience. The work is proof of his stay in Toronto. If we want to ask, \u201cWho is Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria?\u201d – the artist might reply, \u201cLook at my work.\u201d Since Ciria believes that we all wear masks, it makes the question a bit more complicated. \u201cWe are three people: the person we think we are, the person we really are, and the person others see.\u201d In artistic terms, this translates into: \u201cWhat an artist sets out to do, what the work really becomes and what the viewer sees in it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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South Gallery installation<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A clue to unlocking Ciria\u2019s layered creative self lies in a closer examination of the individual paintings in his A Beautiful Day with a Small Storm<\/em>. First of all, any notion that the paintings are casually \u201cdashed off\u201d ought to be expunged immediately. Ciria is disciplined and organized. There is a reason for each painting having either a grid, horizon, or some static basis point. His spontaneity is firmly grounded in a method. He can be wild, yet controls his passions. The drying time of splashes, their thinning out, and the reaction of pigment with gesso and painted ground have been carefully considered. To achieve maximum impact, he employs a strategy of dark to light and neutral to bright colours. Viewed with a squint, the paintings become amazingly 3D. The gridded It\u2019s Getting<\/em> Better is a good example of the effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It’s Getting\nbetter, 2019, oil and mixed media on canvas, 78.75 x 78.75 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beauty Puzzle<\/em> is a virtuoso painting that showcases all of the artist\u2019s gifts. His rockets are exploded into a single fireworks display: the chemistry of liquidity and drying with an arabesque of colour and splash into the sky above a strip of red and white carnival tent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Beauty Puzzle, 2019, <\/a>oil and mixed media on canvas, 78.75 x 78.75 inches<\/font><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nBridge<\/em> attempts to\nspan a fractured horizon. Things don\u2019t quite line up, as they must not.\nDifficulty is the point. After all, a leap of faith may only be actualized in\nthe effort. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Bridge, 2019, oil and mixed media on canvas, 51.25 x 51.25 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ciria hits\nthe piano keys hard in The Concert<\/em>. The bursts of colour at the centre\nare laid over pulses and beats in pounding staccato. In this, Ciria makes sound\nvisible. The Party, on the other hand, is cool and measured. A wide band of\nlight grey in the foreground distances the observer from the tidy row of\nsplattered blots near the top like beads on an abacus. An accountant would be\npleased that there are enough splashes for each day of the week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Concert, 2019, oil and mixed media on canvas, 51.25 x 51.25 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ciria gave\nme a tour of his exhibition the day before it opened. The exchange that stuck\nwith me occurred before Scarecrow<\/em>. It seemed that the image of the\nscarecrow had emerged in the course of the painting\u2019s creation like a phantom.\nThe moment had somehow been startling to the artist. In an exhibition of\nabstract paintings, a figure is the guest you didn\u2019t invite to the party, but\nintroduce to everyone anyway. It\u2019s the guest you end up talking about the next\nday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Scarecrow, 2019, oil and mixed media on canvas, 51.25 x 51.25 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steve\nRockwell<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Images are\ncourtesy of Christopher Cutts Gallery<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Exhibition\ninformation: June 8 \u2013 Aug 3, 2019, Christopher Cutts Gallery, 21 Morrow Ave,\nToronto. Gallery hours: Tue \u2013 Sat 10 am \u2013 6 pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Steve Rockwell<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ciria inhabits his work, and that the life and breath of his canvases are closely woven into the artist\u2019s own persona.<\/p>\n

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