Maria Gil Lucientes: Letting the Materials Misbehave

Maria Gil Lucientes, Circles series backdrop

Maria Gil Lucientes paints in the slim margin where a system starts to come undone. She begins with a constraint, a single color, a periodic screen, a piece of medical gauze, then lets the materials misbehave. In Pareidolia, gauze shifted by air becomes the suggestion of a face. A Spanish-born painter who studied mathematics, physics, and computer science before a decade in tech, Lucientes brings a system-builder’s discipline to a practice that hinges on chance. Here, she reflects on the path from science to painting, the dialogue between control and surprise in her process, and the new Moiré series taking shape in her studio.

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Rafael Delacruz: Healing Finger Clean Drawings at Mitchell Innes & Nash

RAFAEL DELACRUZ Don't sleep while we explain 2022
Rafael Delacruz, Don’t sleep while we explain, 2022, oil and cochineal on canvas, photo courtesy @ Mitchell-Innes & Nash

Neither the exhibition text nor the online imagery, although both generous, adequately primed me for Rafael Delacruz’s spellbinding painting exhibition at Mitchell-Innes & Nash. The moment I stepped into the gallery, I was engulfed in a world with vibrant enigmatic narratives, layered as a fusion of drawing, lino-cut-like marks, and a kaleidoscope of restless patterns, all shimmering under the play of vivid paint. The paintings reveal recognizable elements like cars or figures while hiding drawings underneath, daring us to embark on a delightful game of artistic hide and seek.

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