“Volver,” the first one-person exhibition in the U.S. by Michelle Concepción, received a major review in the Sunday edition of “El Nuevo Herald.”
Featured on the front of the newspaper’s “Artes & Letras” section with four large color photographs, the review was penned by critic Janet Batet, who notes that the spheroid elements in the artist’s new works appear to be drifting in the ether of their backgrounds:
“Her works, impregnated with the notion of movement, insinuate forms that sail, slowly, in absolute harmony.”
A three-and-a-half minute video of the 38-year-old Puerto Rican artist at work may be accessed from the gallery home page by clicking on “Gallery” and then “News/Art Blogs.” First she is shown mixing paint, then stretching a large canvas with her assistant, smoothing its gesso base with a five-foot brush, and finally painting and manipulating the canvas.
What it doesn’t show is Concepción’s method of creating a unique illusion of texture on her paintings, a technique she has developed over a lifetime of painting and more than 50 individual and group exhibitions in Spain, Germany, and the United States.
For most viewers, her paintings create an abstract enigma whose interpretation is up to the viewer. According to art critic Peter Frank, “Each of us sees the myriad interplays of form, color and shade that dominate Concepción’s paintings slightly differently, perhaps, but we all recognize that her forms float, often one across another.”
Gallery owner Virginia Miller observes that Concepción has an amazing ability that simply can’t be appreciated from a photo or on a computer. “She has developed a method of painting that creates a realistic appearance of a rough, deep texture—like the surface of an asteroid—despite the flat surfaces of her canvases,” she says.
Volver,” the current exhibition at ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries, will be on display through September 26th. Located at 169 Madeira Ave. in the Coral Gables business district, the gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information, call 305-444-4493.
For information on the artist and the gallery, you can visit virginiamiller.com.
