Juan Uslé: Al Clarear, Frith Street Gallery

At Frith Street Gallery, Juan Uslé paintings offers idiosyncratic abstractions, constructed with translucent layers of handmade saturated colours.

At some point during the mid-Ninties, the Spanish painter Juan Uslé , renowned for his idiosyncratic abstractions, re-oriented his approach to painting. He began to lay down stuttering lines of stripes, painted predominately in black, running across large vertical canvases. The entire ongoing group, entitled  “Soñé que Revelabas” (“I dreamt that you revealed”), were in fact based upon the beat of his heart. That motion and stoppage in his gesture followed his own particular biological rhythm. 

Hence, Uslé works at the point of a certain contradiction. In effect, the image that these paintings bring together might appear like an abstract pattern or a strange tapestry. The paintings Al Clarear, 2014, gives its title to this modest exhibition at Frith Street Gallery and provides a perfect example of this.  It consists of three zones: groupings of blue stuttering lines at the top and bottom, and a middle section of mostly black lines with some incidents of colour among them. The middle band suggests a window or a road between water. But in fact, these paintings are performative in the sense that the rhythm of his mark-making follows his body. That is where Uslé’s approach is unique. It is a mark being made each time, and each moment – each beat – is commemorated on canvas. 

A number of years ago, Usle referred to a popular saying in Spanish that “you are where you breathe,” in relation to New York and that often he enjoyed being in his studio “breathing”. This is what is most evident in his art, it breathes.