Nüart Gallery presents, La Coleccionista, a solo exhibition of new oil paintings by Alberto Galvez. The exhibition will run October 4th through October 20th, with an opening reception on Friday, October 4th, from 5:00 - 7:00 pm.
Alberto Galvez is known for his stunning monumental oil paintings of faces that seem at once timeless and contemporary. Employing Renaissance painting techniques, Galvez glazes translucent colors in fine layers over monochromatic lower registers which gives his work a classical nature and ethereal glow. In his paintings, centuries of time and the western art historical tradition conflate, leaving the viewer to ponder if they are classical women transposed into a modern context, modern women infused with the souls of ancient muses, or if they have been lifted out to time altogether and speak directly to something more fundamental.
The faces and the bright colorfields in the paintings of Alberto Galvez’s new exhibition, La Coleccionista, are a result of the artist’s passion for the painters of the western art historical canon, mostly from the Renaissance: Catharina van Hemessen, Vermeer, Lavinia Fontana, Agnolo di Cosimo (Bronzino), and Sofonisba Anguissola, among others. In this series Galvez’s figures have contemporary hairstyles and necklines, but they borrow the gaze and presence of women in old master paintings to become larger-than-life contemporary counterparts of classical muses. Galvez seems to have adopted not just the features and gestures from the royalty and holy women of Renaissance paintings, but also something of their essential nature. His paintings also borrow colors from the original masterworks, colors taken directly from the portraits Galvez is inspired by; the carmine of a Bronzino dress, for example, the ultramarine of the robe of Giotto’s Mary, or a splash of cadmium from an Albrecht Dürer may expand and fill the entire background for a painting.
Alberto Gálvez was born and resides on the Mediterranean coast in Valencia, Spain, where he is also a tenured Professor of Painting at the renowned School of Fine Arts in Valencia, Universitat Politècnica de València. His paintings can be found in numerous international private and corporate collections. Gálvez has participated in over 67 solo and group exhibitions across Europe including an invitation to participate in The Madonna in Contemporary Art, a tribute for the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's pontificate, held at the Pantheon in Rome and the European Parliament in Brussels
