Alonso Garcés gallery turns 40 with exhibition by Francisco Fernández

0
1356

Whien gallery Garcés Velásquez opened it doors in 1977 in a red brick building overlooking the Parque de la Independencia, founders Alonso Garcés and Aseneth Velásquez were pioneers of a burgeoning contemporary arts scene. As this prestigious gallery in La Macarena neighborhood celebrates its 40th anniversary, the gallery now known as Alonso Garcés Galería, continues to be the home of many of this country’s leading artists that include Carlos Jacanamijoy, Lydia Azout, Delcy Morelos, Bernardo Salcedo, Beatriz Gonzalez, and artists Luis Caballero and Carlos Rojas, whose works are represented posthumously.

The gallery hosts an average of six exhibitions a year, and since 1979 has participated in national and international art fairs such as FIAC (Paris), ARCO (Madrid), FIA (Caracas) and the Chicago International Art Fair. The gallery is also a permanent participant in the city’s most important art fair ARTBO, and recognized for its uncompromising curatorial vision and reference in the larger context of Latin American art.

To celebrate the gallery’s milestone, Alonso Garcés presents this month an exhibition by painter Francisco Fernández Bahamon, in the Great Room of the house-turned-gallery, which once belonged to Bogota?’s only Theosophical church.

Since taking up the pen with a degree in Graphic Design from the Tadeo Lozano University in 1984, Francisco Fernández is considered one of the most promising artist to emerge on the contemporary arts scene in recent years, and breaking the mold of art as installation. Fernández’s large canvas paintings are inspired by design, typography and visual representation of language. In other words, his paintings speak volumes of a rather enigmatic soul who can obliquely reorganize space into works, that as the title of the exhibition suggests, is “for your eyes only”.

For Fernández, art is a never-ending process of creation and searching for the abstract within beauty, even though beauty is often underrated today among contemporaries.”For your eyes only” is as much about the finished canvas as it is about technique: from drawing with lines, to the ornamental use of calligraphy.

Chosen by the distinguished Alonso Garcés to host a show for this landmark event marks an important recognition for Fernández and whose work may not be familiar to the gallery-going public. But, like the artists who have succeeded in gracing the walls of this prestigious house with their paintings, “For your eyes only” offers the public a rare opportunity to understand the conscious mind of an artist dedicated to the physical act of painting, that can be read in articulated curves and aesthetic use of color.

Galería Alonso Garcés –  Cra 5 No.26-92

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here