JUAN USLÉ

HORIZONTAL LIGHT will present new works as a continuation of his best-known series that began in 1997, ‘Soñe que revelabas’ [I DreamtThat You Revealed], also known as ‘SQR’. To date, Uslé‘s SQR paintingshave emerged as the largest unified set within his oeuvre, a sequence ofmesmerising chords interweaving explosions of light and colourheightened by their towering size. Measuring at least 108 x 80 inches(275 x 203 cm), the work’s verticality is reiterated in its modular strokes. Overshadowing the viewer, Uslé‘s landscapes envelop us in their presence—a life-size electrocardiogram charting the momentumof the artist’s brushstrokes and a record of time’s passage.

These monumental pieces will be accompanied by the works on paper Notes on SQR, and a selection of vibrant intimate-scale paintings. HORIZONTAL LIGHT coincides with Uslé‘s museum retrospective,Eye and Landscape, at the Bombas Gens Centre d’Art, Valencia, Spain, on view through September 12,2021.

‘The SQR paintings slow down our looking. Their size demands that we stand at a distance if we expect to take them in, and then, as we move closer, scrutinising the surface, we physically experience thecontinuity of their slight changes as well as their sudden shifts of mood and direction... Uslé gives uslight, colour, and a sense of time passing. He shows us a pulverised, porous world–a state of suspendeddisintegration... Uslé‘s paintings invite us to return to a silence interrupted only by our beating hearts,’ writes poet and critic, John Yau, for the museum’s exhibition catalogue.