Gaep at Art Paris 2024: preview of the presentation

27 March 2024

We are delighted to return to Art Paris with a presentation that brings together new and recent works by three artists who share a critical approach to their preferred mediums of expression – painting (Cătălin Pîslaru) and drawing (Raluca Popa and Ignacio Uriarte) –, as well as an interest in expanding these mediums beyond traditional materials or forms.

Cătălin Pîslaru works in series that integrate a vibrant use of color, conceptual construction, and subtle formal humor. He sketches his compositions digitally and then builds them by hand with delicate lines that meet pigment-thick contours of monochrome shapes. The resulting works preserve the neatness of the digital visual language, but also show the marks of classic painting techniques. With the aim of pushing the boundaries of painting beyond the canvas, the artist experiments with alu-dibond, HPL panels, different industrial materials, confronting himself with new possibilities constantly.

Cătălin Pîslaru, Dear Ghost, You Can Sleep in My Garden, 2024
Cătălin Pîslaru, Dear Ghost, You Can Sleep in My Garden, 2024, tempera, acryl color and wax on alu-dibond, 188 x 150 cm © Cătălin Pîslaru
Cătălin Pîslaru, I Planted Cucumbers in Her Swimming Pool to Please the Monster, 2024
Cătălin Pîslaru, I Planted Cucumbers in Her Swimming Pool to Please the Monster, 2024, oil color and tempera on alu-dibond, 188 x 150 cm © Cătălin Pîslaru
Cătălin Pîslaru, Unfunctional Activities #2, 2023
Cătălin Pîslaru, Unfunctional Activities #2, 2023, tempera on paper mounted on HPL panel, 42 x 29.7 cm © Cătălin Pîslaru
Cătălin Pîslaru, Unfunctional Activities #9, 2023
Cătălin Pîslaru, Unfunctional Activities #9, 2023, tempera on paper mounted on HPL panel, 42 x 29.7 cm © Cătălin Pîslaru
Cătălin Pîslaru, Unfunctional Activities #15, 2023
Cătălin Pîslaru, Unfunctional Activities #15, 2023, tempera on paper mounted on HPL panel, 42 x 29.7 cm © Cătălin Pîslaru

Raluca Popa collects materials – images, ideas, texts, her own or from others – and weaves them into new shapes and configurations that are fed by a variety of sources, whether visual, literary, or musical. Disegno Ricercato (I) is an ongoing series of drawings for which the artist associates a musical score, Ligeti’s Musica Ricercata no. 1, and a photograph taken by Brancusi in his studio, with the aim of creating a new type of visual structure from apparently disparate source materials. Also included in the presentation is an object that acts as an optical camouflage device, making fragments of text appear invisible – a commentary on visibility and legibility, two key notions in Popa’s practice. 

Raluca Popa, Poem, 2023
Raluca Popa, Poem, 2023, plywood, 4 lenses, plexiglass, aluminum, cardboard strips with fragments from Seda Mimaroğlu, Love Songs, Blue Figure Press, 2021, 15 x 11.7 x 120 cm © Raluca Popa
Ignacio Uriarte, Green Glow, 2023
Ignacio Uriarte, Green Glow, 2023, pigmented ink on paper, 100 x 68 cm (107 x 75 x 4 cm framed) © Ignacio Uriarte

Almost 20 years ago, when he quit his last administrative job to devote himself to making art, Ignacio Uriarte decided he would use office tools and methods familiar to any employee, working in a routine way and with routine as his subject matter. Since then, he has continuously set parameters and bounds for himself, convinced that art needs structure, and that such a structure is not a constraint but a fertile framework for finding new ways of expression. Referencing the formally pared-back, conceptually rigorous practices of Minimal and Conceptual Art, Uriarte gives weight to commonplace office materials (ballpoint pens, paper, permanent markers) and subtle actions. In the drawings selected for this presentation, he creates painterly effects or optical illusions through simple geometric shapes and repetitive gestures.

Art fair details

Art Paris 2024

Gaep, Booth H12

With the support of the Romanian Cultural Institute

Address

Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris

Public Opening Hours
4 April: 12:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
5 April: 12:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
6 April: 12:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
7 April: 12:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.