Descripción de la Exposición
josé-maría cano: luna
A group of 23 encaustic paintings, inspired by our planet’s solitary moon, named Luna (Moon) by contemporary Spanish artist José-María Cano will be on view at Gary Nader Art Centre from December 2, 2019 till May 31st, 2020.
“The Moon. The only one. The soul of Thea. The recipient of humanity most beautiful looks. The only thing that is exclusively to Earth along with mankind. The light in the darkness. The symbol of Islam, the Virgin Mary. Everyone saw the Moon. The same Moon. Only a few turned to listen to her. Those few went crazy or became eternal.”José-María Cano, 2019.
Cano started his career as a musician and composer in the 80’s, being a member of the most successful Spanish pop band of all times, Mecano. Hijo de la Luna (Son of the Moon) is one of his most famous songs. After the band Mecano separated in 1992, José-María composed an opera named Luna (Moon), which was recorded with Plácido Domingo in the leading role, proving that Cano has been inspired by the Moon for a long time. For the past twenty years, the artist has devoted himself exclusively to painting, gaining international acclaim for his meticulous and visually engaging resin technique.
“Cano's moons appear to have taken shape through an alchemical process of their own, the fluidity of the marks burnt into the surface by light in a process as apparently random and subject to physical forces, and as mysterious and inexplicable, as the formation of the universe itself”. As Marco Livingstone, curator of his London show continues to describe his paintings. “Floating in dense atmospheres of infinite darkness, each one also seems not just to reflect the sun's rays but to glow with its own inner light. The translucency of the chosen medium, little used today (Jasper Johns apart) but with a glorious precedent in the funerary portraits painted in Egypt nearly two thousand years ago during the Coptic period of Greco-Roman rule, produces an expressive visual and physical equivalent to the imagery”.
Born in Madrid in 1959, José-María Cano’s acclaimed oeuvre poses a critical question on the extraordinarily powerful role that images play in the contemporary, and looks into truth versus reality. His works have been exhibited at numerous international museums and galleries around the world, including shows at the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague, The National Museum of Modern Arts in Tokio, and the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing among others. On 2019 he presented his famous resin series Apostolate, exhibited at the exposition Art and Empire: The Golden Age of Spain, at San Diego Museum of Art.
Exposición. 17 nov de 2024 - 18 ene de 2025 / The Ryder - Madrid / Madrid, España
Formación. 23 nov de 2024 - 29 nov de 2024 / Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS) / Madrid, España
