March 23rd 2018 – Group show at Arquitectura de Barrio, Murcia

Bran Solo at the Arquitectura de Barrio group exhibition

Today, the Arquitectura de Barrio studio inaugurates its third illustration exhibition. Directed by Enrique de Andrés and Coral Marín, the Murcian space brings together the works of seven creators from the Region
 
Open to the public, the room combines a work area in the centre of the room with an exhibition gallery around it, on whose walls the works of the participating artists hang. The one that opens today – at 7.30 pm – is the third show that the studio has organised since its opening, and will be open until 11 May.
 
“We are very restless and have always been interested in culture. This new room opened up the possibility of carrying out other activities and we thought it was a good idea”, says Marín about the exhibitions and workshops that her studio has hosted – in which there is also a sample of the works developed by the couple of architects, especially committed to the care and preservation of the historical and cultural heritage – in recent weeks.
 
Veronica Cámara, Eloy González, María Moya, Diego Lizán, Juan Castaño, Alba Flores, Jesús Galvañ, Elena Garnu and Akira Sanz, among others, have already been through it. “The world of illustration is very much abandoned, there are many young people who do not have spaces to exhibit their art and yet the creativity and quality of Murcian creators is tremendous,” said De Andrés and Marín. Among the projects that these architects are considering is, in addition to the exhibition activity, the publication of fanzines.
 
The works exhibited in Arquitectura de Barrio have no common thread. Each artist chooses which works they want to show, according to the dimensions of the wall on which they exhibit, since not all are exactly the same, says Marín. Hence the diversity of themes, styles and techniques that bring together each exhibition. Watercolor, painting, graphic design, pencil…; series, graphic novel, portraits, landscapes…; from “a play of contrasts between the wild and the everyday with a dose of humour that allows the free interpretation of the spectator to be given free rein”, defines her proposal Sofía Martínez, A series of pencil drawings and some works painted with acrylic that mix portrait and interior spaces”, shows the work of El Dibujo, an artist from Águilas who has exhibited his work in Madrid, Málaga, Barcelona and at the Art Gaysel fair during the Art Basel week in Miami in 2017.
 
The artistic journey also stops at Bran Sólo‘s illustrations. The creator, painter, designer and photographer from Murcia has prepared a series that, he describes, “reflects the pessimistic character through inexpressive, slightly melancholic, dark portraits of faces that, although they have been deformed by the emotions of the character portrayed, do not fail to transmit the beauty forgotten behind the pain and fear that seems to drown the model”.
 
 
 
Irony
 
Together with him, Óscar de la Cruz presents’Rosemary Western’, a graphic novel “whose magic lies -explains its author- in its lack of text and cartoons”. De la Cruz continues: “The work allows the viewer to unfold the imagination, with which he or she can intervene by creating his or her own story”.
 
Almas de madera’ (Wooden Souls) is the title of the series proposed by the Carthaginian writer José Manuel Fuentes, made on wood. In it, the protagonism, its author points out, falls “on the human figure, almost exclusively on the face: the eyes and the lips”, and “where the calibrated markers do not finish the line, the wood grain does; adding -helpfully- warmth and a certain mystery”.
 
The exhibition is completed by Ana Manzano, who proposes several mixed technique originals with which she seeks to “call the attention of the observer, delving deeper into the hidden labyrinth of the person”, and the Molinense Moisés Yagües, The illustrator Eva Poyato, who is also an illustrator, writes about her work: “A sharp irony emerges, which is reflected in the choice of titles, which are like small texts that accompany each work”. In Arquitectura de Barrio, Poyato continues, Yagües includes “drawings, paintings, graphic works, works in which through this irony he brings us closer to small stories, situations and characters that try to survive the society around them”.
 
With this study, De Andrés and Marín, who have been associated for four years, open a window to the art and culture that they have been taking care of for a long time with initiatives focused on the dissemination and conservation of the architectural and historical legacy of the city. His are the projects’Murcia al azar’, an original deck of 48 cards with information about the city and its monuments;’El juego del Rey Sabio’, commissioned by the City Council of Murcia to mark the 750th anniversary of the creation of its Council and on a map of the city in the eighteenth century; and the publication’Entre acequias y molinos’, a guide through the Murcian garden following the course of the irrigation waters, to which many other activities are added.